Comment by simonsarris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonsarris | Hacker News Reader

By realtime the autor means that it would pop up like an IM/SMS. I'm not so sure I'm convinced that emails popping up like IMs is a good idea.

I have nothing wrong with getting my emails faster, and I'm sure it would benefit a lot of people, but personally I don't want email to be realtime in the way that IMs or texting is. More importantly, I don't want anyone who emails me to expect it to be realtime.

When I want that kind of availability I have phone-availability and instant-message (be it phone-based or PC based). I'd rather keep email to important-yet-not-time-sensitive things.

If email were "realtime," I would have some kind of expectation coming from the people that want to use it in such a way, thereby beguiling me into constantly letting it be checked (by it alerting me).

Even if I don't allow it to pop up on my device I would still have to explain to each new contact that email for me does not mean an instantaneous read and reply.

Some of my friends get cranky when I don't answer their IMs instantly, I think it would be a bit of a pain if people treated email with the same expectations of responsiveness.

That reminds me of my old boss expecting email to be the same as an answered phone call. There was a problem in our system that he wanted me and a co-worker to solve by working late and he sent us a both an email. The was close to the end of the day. I didn't read the email until the next morning. He yelled at me for not putting in the extra effort and leaving it to my co-worker. The really funny part was that his office was only 20 steps away from my desk and he could have dialed a four digit number to reach my desk phone. And this was back in 1994.

There is a HR joke about mail. He send a mail request not relevant and the first one to answer is fired because it means this guy is not realy busy.

Every part of your description makes it sound like an awful place to work. I don't get why people who happen to have the job of "manager" assume they have the right to yell at people. It's not remotely professional and certainly doesn't have the intended effect.

Outlook does something similar to this out of the box, notifications in the lower right corner of the window. It is a focus-killer.

> By realtime the autor means that it would pop up like an IM/SMS. I'm not so sure I'm convinced that emails popping up like IMs is a good idea.

Exactly. I think the ideal situation would be for IM and SMS be integrated (or just have one win out) and for your IM/SMS messanger be integrated into your email inbox. Then, have an option to be either "available" or "not available" for IM/SMS. IM/SMSs sent when you're not available would show up like email in an inbox.

This is basically what google is doing with gmail and gchat. The only problem right now is that I can't do gchat on my cell phone. Also, the SMS/IM standard has to be as open as the email standard, where I can contact everyone.

Skype chat on the iPhone is like this(though sometimes delayed based on load I guess) and for the most part fast to send you push notifications. With the backgrounding it is available for a few hours of inactivity before needing to re login.

Edit: wow the ipad messed up my sentence.

I know someone who puts a warning in her .sig file: “I do not read my email every day, or even every other day.” I assume she was fed up with people who sent her an email question and then bugged her an hour later asking her when she would respond.

I agree. Most information doesn't need to be learned in realtime, just made available in realtime. If you need data, you should be able to find it. If you don't need it, it shouldn't command your valuable attention.

Email lets each participant manage their attention according to their priorities. If you're arm-deep in refactoring a class hierarchy, you don't want me to call, especially if I just want to blather about hockey. Email also feels more scalable than instant messenger - I asynchronously communicate with more than a dozen people every few hours with email, but IMing or texting starts to feel overwhelming at n >= 5

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