Building Email Apps
AJAXWorld
October 20, 2008
San Jose, CA
Andy Denmark
TripIt, Co-Founder and VP Engineering

Email Bankruptcy
“(He) just declared email bankruptcy. I've
read those declarations enough to know
it means our email tools aren't usable.”
- garrickvanburen on Twitter
“I routinely declare email
bankruptcy and simply delete my
entire inbox.”
“Wondering if I can get a Bear - Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
Sterns bailout for my email
bankruptcy.”
- willpate on Twitter
So, why is email still around despite all the
challenges and criticism…
?

Email Is Still The “Killer App”
 Email is a natural extension of a metaphor for
communication that humans have used forever
 Everyone has email and is the overwhelming majority
of person-to-person online communication
 No matter what else people use to communicate, they
use email too
 Email contains an amazing amount of context and
data about our lives
 Our relationships
 Our purchases
 Our thoughts and the thoughts of people we know

What More Can We Do With Email?
 Spam and mass email marketing may be contributing
to the problems outlined earlier
 But think of all the things we can do to make our
applications better by making better use of email:
 Broadcasting data
 Query interfaces
 Data transfer
 Intelligent parsing of data
 Mining of social connections (“Inbox 2.0”)
 Email as an application platform

Does An Email App Make Sense?
PROS CONS
 Ubiquity – everyone has  May just not fit your service
email  May be too complex for your
 Exposure – email is on all day users to understand
and captures a lot of  It’s challenging to properly
attention support all email clients,
 Simplicity – easy to send versions and formats
email, everyone knows how  Building and supporting a
to do it system that sends, receives,
 Embedded identity and reads email is a pain

Prehistoric Email Apps

Domain Registration Email Sign-Up
 Email to:
hostmaster@internic.net
 From address
authentication for new
sign-ups
 Choose to receive your
bill via email or USPS
 Authentication schemes
for modify/delete were
CRYPT-PW and PGP

Archie File Query Email Interface
Available Interfaces
 Text-based client
 Graphical client
 Telnet client
 Email

Browsing The Web Via Email
“For personal reasons, I do not browse
the web from my computer. (I also have
no net connection much of the time.) To
look at page I send mail to a demon which
runs wget and mails the page back to me.
It is very efficient use of my time, but it is
slow in real time.”
-- Richard Stallman (2007-12-15)

About TripIt
?

***CONFIDENTIAL*** 13

Add Meetings,
Activities,
Forward Any Restaurants, etc.
Confirmation
Email
Trip Sharing &
Social Alerts
Automated
Online Master
Itinerary
iCal & Atom
Support
Automated
Weather, Maps,
Guides… Email &
Mobile
Access

Why Email Made Sense For TripIt
 The native format of travel data is varied and
unfriendly
 The travel industry isn’t moving to expose that data
 Partnering with big travel companies and building
APIs would take too long
 Users already have all their travel data in email, but
that data is “dead”
 Auto-account creation using the embedded identity
of an email message
 It has become an “instant delight” factor for users

Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Data Semantic
Broadcast
Interface Transfer Parsing
?

Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Data Semantic
Broadcast
Interface Transfer Parsing
One Way
• User requests email
information to be sent
to them
• Typically triggered by
an action or an alert
Examples
• Mailing Lists
• Google Alerts

Example: Mailing Lists
Searchable
knowledge base
built as a by-
product of natural
human
communication

Example: Google Alerts
 “Real time” alerts
delivered right to my
desktop
 Useful way to
asynchronously
broadcast data I’ve
requested as it’s
available
 With linkage to the
web, alerts are
actionable and
controllable

Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Data Semantic
Broadcast
Interface Transfer Parsing
CLI
• Users emails a
command and Email
App replies with a
response
• Typically a standard
list of commands and
responses
Examples
• I Want Sandy
• TripIt

Example: I Want Sandy
http://iwantsandy.com/

Example: TripIt

Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Data Semantic
Broadcast
Interface Transfer Parsing
Email Forwarding
• Users forward emails
and Email App
recognizes and parses
them
• Typically converts
“unstructured” data into
“structured” data
making it more usable
to the app and user
Examples
• Flickr
• Blogger

Example: Flickr

Example: Blogger

Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Data Semantic
Broadcast
Interface Transfer Parsing
Intelligent Agent
• Structured data from
email is enriched by
the Email App by
retrieving related
information from other
sites
• Typically leverages
“keys” such as geo-
coding to capture
relevant data
Examples
• TrackMyShipments
• TripIt

Example: TrackMyShipments

Example: TripIt
Timezone Weather Flight Details
Online Checkin Flight Status Seat Advice

Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Data Semantic
Broadcast
Interface Transfer Parsing
One Way CLI Email Forwarding Intelligent Agent
• User requests email • Users emails a • Users forward emails • Structured data from
information to be sent command and Email and Email App email is enriched by
to them App replies with a recognizes and parses the Email App by
response them retrieving related
• Typically triggered by
information from other
an action or an alert • Typically a standard • Typically converts
sites
list of commands and “unstructured” data into
responses “structured” data • Typically leverages
making it more usable “keys” such as geo-
to the app and user coding to capture
relevant data
Examples Examples Examples Examples
Listserv I Want Sandy Flickr TrackMyShipments
Google Alerts TripIt Blogger TripIt

Email Systems as Platforms
 Why turn an email system into a platform for running
applications?
 Natural personal productivity integration point with other tools such
as calendar, contact list, etc…
 All the data is already there
 Done right, the UI is a natural extension of what hundreds of millions
of people use everyday, small learning curve
 Examples
 Outlook/Xobni
 GMail w/ GreaseMonkey
 GMail Labs
 Yahoo! Open Mail

Outlook/Xobni
 Search your Inbox
 People-focused analytics and
semantic analysis (e.g., phone
numbers)
 Implicit social graph discovery (i.e.,
who talks to whom?)
 Related conversations
 http://www.xobni.com/

TripIt for GMail
Drives the UI to
“forward” the email
No access to the
data in the message
(e.g. headers,
attachments, etc…)
“Brittle” solution
that relies on a UI
that doesn’t change
No feedback loop
or error handling
with TripIt’s
backend
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25778

GMail Labs
 Features on top of GMail, no
mashups yet
 Not available to non-
Googlers
 Huge un-fufilled potential

Yahoo! Mail
Video: Yahoo! OpenMail/TripIt Integration

Key Takeaways
 Email is not dead!
 Treasure-trove of data waiting to be mined
 At least four different types of apps
 Broadcast, CLI, Data transfer, Semantic parsing
 Emerging email platforms
 New ways of delivering your applications via mail platforms are
coming
 If you get it right, huge payoff for you and your users

Questions
Andy Denmark
TripIt, Co-Founder and VP Engineering