Tripit Ajaxworld V5

Building Email Apps

AJAXWorldOctober 20, 2008San Jose, CA

Andy DenmarkTripIt, Co-Founder and VP Engineering

Email Bankruptcy

“I routinely declare emailbankruptcy and simply delete myentire inbox.”

- Michael Arrington, TechCrunch“Wondering if I can get a BearSterns bailout for my emailbankruptcy.”

- willpate on Twitter

“(He) just declared email bankruptcy. I'veread those declarations enough to knowit means our email tools aren't usable.”

- garrickvanburen on Twitter

So, why is email still around despite all thechallenges and criticism… ?

Email Is Still The “Killer App”

Email is a natural extension of a metaphor forcommunication that humans have used forever

Everyone has email and is the overwhelming majorityof person-to-person online communication

No matter what else people use to communicate, theyuse email too

Email contains an amazing amount of context anddata 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 contributingto the problems outlined earlier

But think of all the things we can do to make ourapplications 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 Ubiquity – everyone has

email Exposure – email is on all day

and captures a lot ofattention

Simplicity – easy to sendemail, everyone knows howto do it

Embedded identity

CONS May just not fit your service May be too complex for your

users to understand It’s challenging to properly

support all email clients,versions and formats

Building and supporting asystem that sends, receives,and reads email is a pain

Prehistoric Email Apps

Domain Registration Email Sign-Up Email to:

[email protected] From address

authentication for newsign-ups

Choose to receive yourbill via email or USPS

Authentication schemesfor modify/delete wereCRYPT-PW and PGP

Archie File Query Email InterfaceAvailable Interfaces Text-based client Graphical client Telnet client Email

Browsing The Web Via Email

“For personal reasons, I do not browsethe web from my computer. (I also haveno net connection much of the time.) Tolook at page I send mail to a demon whichruns wget and mails the page back to me.It is very efficient use of my time, but it isslow in real time.”

-- Richard Stallman (2007-12-15)

About TripIt

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***CONFIDENTIAL*** 13

Forward AnyConfirmation

Email

AutomatedOnline Master

Itinerary

AutomatedWeather, Maps,

Guides…

Trip Sharing &Social Alerts

iCal & AtomSupport

Email &MobileAccess

Add Meetings,Activities,

Restaurants, etc.

Why Email Made Sense For TripIt

The native format of travel data is varied andunfriendly

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 LineInterface

DataTransfer

SemanticParsingBroadcast

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DataTransfer


One Way

• User requests emailinformation to be sentto them

• Typically triggered byan action or an alert

Examples

• Mailing Lists

• Google Alerts

Example: Mailing Lists

Searchableknowledge basebuilt as a by-product of naturalhumancommunication

Example: Google Alerts “Real time” alerts

delivered right to mydesktop

Useful way toasynchronouslybroadcast data I’verequested as it’savailable

With linkage to theweb, alerts areactionable andcontrollable



DataTransfer


CLI

• Users emails acommand and EmailApp replies with aresponse

• Typically a standardlist of commands andresponses

Examples

• I Want Sandy

• TripIt

Example: I Want Sandy

http://iwantsandy.com/

Example: TripIt



DataTransfer

SemanticParsing

Email Forwarding

• Users forward emailsand Email Apprecognizes and parsesthem

• Typically converts“unstructured” data into“structured” datamaking it more usableto the app and user

Examples

• Flickr

• Blogger

Broadcast

Example: Flickr

Example: Blogger



DataTransfer


Intelligent Agent

• Structured data fromemail is enriched bythe Email App byretrieving relatedinformation from othersites

• Typically leverages“keys” such as geo-coding to capturerelevant data

Examples

• TrackMyShipments

• TripIt

Example: TrackMyShipments

Example: TripIt

Timezone

Online Checkin Flight Status Seat Advice

Flight DetailsWeather



DataTransfer

SemanticParsing

Email Forwarding

• Users forward emailsand Email Apprecognizes and parsesthem

• Typically converts“unstructured” data into“structured” datamaking it more usableto the app and user

Broadcast

CLI

• Users emails acommand and EmailApp replies with aresponse

• Typically a standardlist of commands andresponses

One Way

• User requests emailinformation to be sentto them

• Typically triggered byan action or an alert

Intelligent Agent

• Structured data fromemail is enriched bythe Email App byretrieving relatedinformation from othersites

• Typically leverages“keys” such as geo-coding to capturerelevant data

ExamplesListserv Google Alerts

ExamplesI Want SandyTripIt

ExamplesFlickrBlogger

ExamplesTrackMyShipmentsTripIt

Email Systems as Platforms

Why turn an email system into a platform for runningapplications? 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., phonenumbers)

Implicit social graph discovery (i.e.,who talks to whom?)

Related conversations http://www.xobni.com/

TripIt for GMail

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25778

Drives the UI to“forward” the emailNo access to thedata in the message(e.g. headers,attachments, etc…)“Brittle” solutionthat relies on a UIthat doesn’t changeNo feedback loopor error handlingwith TripIt’sbackend

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 DenmarkTripIt, Co-Founder and VP Engineering

Tripit Ajaxworld V5

Technology

Transcript of Tripit Ajaxworld V5