Empowering Email | Hacker News Reader

Empowering Email

omarshammas.com

14 pointsomarshammas21 comments

I like the idea, but I cannot imagine normals using it en masse. It seems so natural to those familiar with software engineering because it's basically a little language embedded into email conversations. For someone unfamiliar with computer science concepts like translation, languages, compilers, etc, it would be a formidable thing to learn and use.

I agree that it is a major concern, and we're trying to break down this barrier by making the language as human readable as possible.

This is a minor, surface-level thing and completely separate from the actual functionality of your app, but: when I read 'Mailcules', I think 'molecules', not 'Hercules.'

Now that you mention it, I can't not see it.

Yeah, I can only hear it as "mail-quools".

I suggest mailnurse.

This type of thing went through a phase and then died out, much like dedicated messaging apps like Kik and Beluga.

interesting, do you remember any of their names.

What was the problem with those apps?

"I want Sandy" was the biggest one I remember. The company closed/was acquired by Twitter (https://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy/topics/a_fork_in_the_...)

I'm interested to see how this turns out if you pursue it. We actually applied to this past YC with a very similar concept. We got rejected, and were later convinced by a former YC founder that it was too much of a big change for most email users, so we pivoted.

I'd love to chat with you some time if you're available. Just to pick your brain, and see what advice you received.

A combo-app that translated that text into a visual todo list (or other mechanism) makes more sense for 90% of users. Sort of like integrations into a more robust email client. You know like Outlook, but modern.

I was thinking along those lines as well. It would be great if a user could add a widget that would parse the text of the opened email and present the user with the action items of the email.

I liked the ability to be able to use the service from any client. And see the widget as an extension that would increase the usability.

The biggest barrier I believe is people learning the language in the first place to be able to perform these action items.

We're looking for some comments on whether a service like this would be useful to you, and how you would use it. Thanks!

This looks interesting enough to give you my email, but It would be great to have a shorter syntax perhaps? That looks like an awful lot of typing, especially for smartphone users.

The balance we're trying to strike with the syntax is for it to be as succinct as possible, while being human readable and as natural as possible. How would you make the syntax better

i believe remember the milk have similar idea, where you can email it something and it will create a task for you

In the age of Siri. Why should I type?

Siri doesn't replace email, they perform different functions.

Email is sticking around for the foreseeable future. Mailcules hopes to facilitate a variety of these workflows you achieve through email. Eventually you can replace writing emails with voice recognition.

"In the age of video, why should I read?"

true. true.

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