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Syndication feeds to replace email?

Let's face it, email has become unuseable, the latest worm to strike is likely only the tip of the iceberg we're about to collide with. I've never liked the metaphore of an 'inbox', certainly not one that fills up and can't accurately be filtered.
Source: Email is Dead, Long Live Email!

I linked to D.J.Bernstein’s Internet Mail 2000 project a little while back, and I think what Adam Curry says here is along a similar path.

Internet Mail 2000 starts off with the assumption, “Mail storage is the sender’s responsibility.” So, you want to send me an email? Post it on your server and tell me to come & get it. When I get the notification, I’ll then decide whether or not I want to bother. There are a lot of details to fill in here, such as secure posting and retrieval, trust and identity, notification mechanisms. But, it certainly would seem to balance out the equation a bit.

How to do it, though, so that things are still at least as simple to use as existing email, such as it is?

shortname=email_feeds

Archived Comments

  • Martin Atkins

    Internet Mail 2000 will never happen. The time for creating Internet standards passed a decade ago. ISPs currently support email as it is today only because it was around when they started to exist. The same applies to USENET. Getting them to provide a new alternative email service to their customers is as unlikely as all ISPs running a Jabber server with accounts for each customer, or providing an Atom syndication proxy which sucks down Atom feeds and re-syndicates them to customers. Geeks can, of course, run their own Internet Mail 2000 servers and services, but today's average Internet user will not do this and will go on using the service provided by their ISP or free mail service of choice. It's a shame, but that's how it is.
  • Curtis Seyfried

    On first reading this concept is definetly interesting. But, a flaw becomes evident. The notification that userX wants to send an e-mail to userZ, is the same as sending e-mail. If a spammer sends me 2,000 notifications, they just as well should have sent me the e-mails. Mostly what needs to be done is that everyone needs to have anti-virus software that updates itself everytime you logon. Invisible, built into the O/S. Then there should be a firewall built into every O/S. I have Symantec Norton anti-virus 2003 with live update. Everytime Norton upgrades its software I unfortunetly have to also, but it auotmatically updates virus lists. I receieved 200 SoBig e-mails with the virus attached. Not a single one got onto my PC. Then I run 2 opensource firewalls, along with Snort intrusion detection. The firewalls are Outpost and Sygate personal. I hardblocked entry to anything on the ports used by MSBlaster after I found out what they were in a few articles. BUT, even before I did that everytime MSBlaster would try to assault my PC both firewalls would alert me and I would set up a permenant rule denying access. This stopped it quickly. Additionally, people need to kppe their O/S updated with all sp's, critical and security patches. I have Win2K pro fully updated. WELL, that is a lot of WORK and $$$$'s, but this is what needs to be done 1st in thisucky real world. THEN, Every MS licencee, because we do not even OWN the software, well licensors are still liable for their products, no matter what the 400 page in 8pt type licence agreement says. We ALL need to demand that MS fix their shit, and ALLL sue as a class action to get the BILLIONS in CASH $$$$'s they've got in the bank. Strip Bill Gates to his underwear, then tar and feather him and run him out of town on a rail "Only Philosophiclly of course". Just like American politics, if you don't hold them accountable they'll screw you every way you let them. Just think if every Corporate IT and personal MS user got together and sued for damamges, even the judges hate MS. I run PopFile as a Spam blocker and it works Great, after a 3 month training period it's provides a consistent 94% accuracy rate. I marks my e-mail by catagory before it passes it to Eudora, then I quickly filter my inbox to matching catagory folders. Then I scan the spam titles to catch any mistakes, which I'll stop doing soon. I delete the spam and read my e-mail. I get over 200 e-mails a day, many for informational research purposes, this woks pretty well. CS
  • Martin Atkins

    Curtis, While spammers could still bother you with notifications, the burden is on them to serve the message to everyone who they send the notification to, or else the notification is useless. At the moment Spam is essentially free to the sender, which is why it is so common. If the burden lies with the spammer spam should decrease.
  • Matthew Ernest

    A lot of spam ALREADY is a minimal amount of text and an inconclusive URL to lead you to the seller's pitch. So, we already know that the spammer won't host anything; the SELLER will because they already do.
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