What a blast from the past. That really struck a chord with me from the days when Gmail was "Caribou" and I argued endlessly with Paul that I wouldn't leave Outlook for any system that didn't include folders... until Outlook crashed on me without warning and deleted all my mail because I had exceeded its maximum capacity. At that point folders seemed less important, though he did ultimately allow for "labels."
I used to be so careful with my Lotus Notes back end email file size. I did the same with Outlook in a later job. The worst file size issues were with the database .mdf files. The logs could be even worse. We had a tape file size limit for backup. Not that the tapes reliably worked when database files got corrupted. I used to do so much mindless work in SAS just because the files could be smaller with the same data.
Great post, thanks. I was a writer at Google then, and this small-team approach to solving problems was very typical. A lovely way to work and (as this story shows) a powerful way to make progress.
I'm afraid it's untrue to say that until 2005 threaded conversations were "a pipe dream" and that there was no concept of a conversation in email.
In 2005, the default *display* option of most email clients was un-threaded sorted by date. But the existence the In-Reply-To email header dates back to at least the early 90's and was in use to provide threaded views of inboxes in many email clients by 2005. There absolutely was a concept of a "conversation" in email back then, and had been for many years. If people had tried to come up with a UI that captured edge cases, that was something for SIGCHI noodling.
So to say that Gmail "solved" email threading in any way beyond having an overlapping cards UI (termed "stacked threading" on some BBSes at the time) is a rather strange take. Gmail *was* different in that it had no folders and imposed an automatic sort on each thread by last update, rather than always showing new threads at the top (or bottom) of the inbox. But that's not mentioned in this article.
What a blast from the past. That really struck a chord with me from the days when Gmail was "Caribou" and I argued endlessly with Paul that I wouldn't leave Outlook for any system that didn't include folders... until Outlook crashed on me without warning and deleted all my mail because I had exceeded its maximum capacity. At that point folders seemed less important, though he did ultimately allow for "labels."
I used to be so careful with my Lotus Notes back end email file size. I did the same with Outlook in a later job. The worst file size issues were with the database .mdf files. The logs could be even worse. We had a tape file size limit for backup. Not that the tapes reliably worked when database files got corrupted. I used to do so much mindless work in SAS just because the files could be smaller with the same data.
I forgot how much I despise SAS.
Very cool, never knew this!
Interesting and super insightful. Thanks Elizabeth for this great share.
Great post, thanks. I was a writer at Google then, and this small-team approach to solving problems was very typical. A lovely way to work and (as this story shows) a powerful way to make progress.
I wonder… could this have contributed to Material Design’s three-dimensional aspects?
Love that the use of a paper prototype helped guide the way. We default to digital - good lessons here!
I'm afraid it's untrue to say that until 2005 threaded conversations were "a pipe dream" and that there was no concept of a conversation in email.
In 2005, the default *display* option of most email clients was un-threaded sorted by date. But the existence the In-Reply-To email header dates back to at least the early 90's and was in use to provide threaded views of inboxes in many email clients by 2005. There absolutely was a concept of a "conversation" in email back then, and had been for many years. If people had tried to come up with a UI that captured edge cases, that was something for SIGCHI noodling.
So to say that Gmail "solved" email threading in any way beyond having an overlapping cards UI (termed "stacked threading" on some BBSes at the time) is a rather strange take. Gmail *was* different in that it had no folders and imposed an automatic sort on each thread by last update, rather than always showing new threads at the top (or bottom) of the inbox. But that's not mentioned in this article.