I think Facebook and Twitter work presicely because they take the free form content mode of an email (often a rich text document) and severely restrict it to a handful of more readily digestable options.

On any of the platform, there's only so many ways you can format a post. Facebook for example lets you do plain text, dress it up a bit, or attach some piece of content with optional text (a photo, video, or site embed), and then presents your post in a standard way after that.

It seems restricting when I put it all down on paper, but that restriction is downright liberating when you want to get something out quick. Choice can be overwhelming, and for better or worse, the lack of freedom in Facebook's post editor makes it much easier for folks around the globe to pick up and use. Email won't ever have that, and that's okay! Different tools for different jobs.

> Choice can be overwhelming, and for better or worse, the lack of freedom in Facebook's post editor makes it much easier for folks around the globe to pick up and use. Email won't ever have that, and that's okay!

I agree that restrictions are often liberating, and likely played a role in the success of the big social networks. But I disagree about email not being able to have the same kind of restrictions. It absolutely can. All you need is an email client that controls what you can put in the email body when you're composing an email. Most email clients allow pretty free-form messages - from plain text to hundreds of lines of HTML. But they don't _have_ to.

By the same token, there's nothing in HTTP or any other internet protocol that restricts the content of a Facebook post. Those limits are imposed by Facebook's clients (and presumably APIs).

Email has a widely understood delivery protocol and identities. That's really all you need to let people publish and subscribe to each other. The rest is just UI and marketing. (Which, of course, is no small feat!)

I don't agree that the minimalist approach is favorable to growing the platforms.

There are a bunch of email headers you could backwards shoe-horn into serving the purpose of allowing clients to recognize the difference between a life update and a traditional mail, or you could create a new one. You could then make it standard behavior to handle emails with that header via a social client if one is available, and otherwise discard/hide them.

Another possibility to ease UX in a traditional client would be to use the same subject line for all activity. Most clients nowadays will collapse those messages to a single thread, making it friendlier.

my question is, how to keep a standard email from being completely overwhelmed by traffic of the social network, assuming it isn't aware of the headers? Or, you'd just have to tell users to set up a suitable filter?

I think we already see some of these things to some extent like Github pull requests having a lot of usability via email.

I'm assuming that people participating in this network are all using a new kind of email client designed to work with these feeds.

On the receiver or "follower" side of things the client would filter emails coming from addresses you follow into a separate social feed box. All your other emails (e.g. from other random people, or the notification that the shoes you just bought online have been shipped) would be displayed in your standard, traditional inbox. Your list of actual, non-social-update emails would never be polluted by all the noise from your social update feed.

On the sender or "poster" side of things when you post something it would just send emails to your list of followers. Presumably all these people are using clients that are designed to filter the emails into either the social feed or the standard inbox. So you'd never end up spamming people with photos of your lunch on a Greek island with people who haven't signed up to see it.

Of course, it could get tricky if, say, [email protected] is following [email protected] and bob wants to send alice a plain old email that isn't part of his social feed. Using headers, as suggested above, could be great. Or maybe the social feed would be set up as a mailing list, and posts would go through a reflector address. Or else, maybe people would just set up a new email address from which to send posts to their network?

Or, maybe I'm misunderstanding your question?

I dunno. I haven't thought through everything, but I'm pretty confident that existing email infrastructure has all the raw material you'd need to build a workable social network.

Agreed that the existing infrastructure is sufficient.

My main question is how to support both direct and indirect (via a "social" client (as if email wasn't social)) usage in a sustainable fashion. Otherwise I don't see it gaining traction.

Yeah, supporting both uses would be critical. I think you're right that making sure it could interop with existing email clients in as painless a way as possible would be critical.

I'm not sure how much of a chance it would have of succeeding (I'd like it, but would anyone else?). One thing that gives me a bit of hope is the rising popularity recently of email newsletters on specific topics or from specific writers/thought-leaders.

>I'm not sure how much of a chance it would have of succeeding (I'd like it, but would anyone else?)

It may, because it doesn't have to build it's own network effect, it can piggyback on emails existing userbase, which is basically everyone.

I was talking with my housemate, we came up with the idea of a combination push and pull following mechanism. I can offer you the option to follow me by sending you a mail with the X-SOCIAL header and a "follow offer" header content, plus a really simple mail body that says "hey, substance just asked you to join their social updates list. it seems you don't have a social client, <click here> to get one". If you've got a social client installed already, the body gets hidden and you get the follow offer in your social client.

However, you could also send me a mail with the X-SOCIAL "follow request" header, and a similar introductory body: "Hey, skewart wants to keep in touch with you via social mail. Download a social client <here> to connect with them". If I have a social client installed, I get a friend request instead.

The great thing is, your email inbox has a timestamped record of all these requests, so it's like a somewhat unreliable replayable social history, which means if I don't have a social client, I can read the introductory body, go grab a social client and come back, and it will re-parse my inbox and offer me the same follow request, no need for you to resend it.

God damn it, now I like this idea.

I like the header idea, and letting it market itself by way of invitation emails.

Man, now I want to build this thing.

I'm going to start talking to a few people that might have good input and have a swing at writing a comprehensive draft specification, as best I can. Might not be a bad idea to have a proof-of-concept/reference implementation being developed alongside. Wanna take this to a different medium? Skype, wickr, steam, email?

Sounds good! You can reach me at [email protected].

People using socially non-aware clients would have to set up a filter. I would also include friendly "I see you don't have a socially aware email client, get one here" bodies with all messages. The data transfer becomes the marketing tool.