Why email integration? Why not? [message #10293] |
Tue, 27 May 2003 17:08 |
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stevie
Messages: 35 Registered: May 2003 Location: Boston area, USA
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I'm a little curious about the history of fudforum. Was the email integration an early design goal, or was it added later just as a response to someone's need?
I've been really looking into the worlds of mailing lists and web forums, and it seems like this is a type of integration that just isn't done very often.
Many email lists have web archives that are more or less useful, but the web archives aren't really intended as a browsing/posting mechanism, they're there more for researching past discussions.
Many web forums support some level of outgoing mail to notify members of new topics, posts, etc, but there is very little support for posting a message via email.
And then there's fudforum that seems to be close to unique in offering something that is pretty tightly integrated. It seems like an obvious great idea to me, and I guess it must have seemed like a great idea to those who spent a lot of time implementing it. Why has it not really appealed to other software producers?
I'm beginning to chalk it up to pure psychology - some people like email, and hate web forums, and some are just the opposite. Maybe it's just rare to find people who see merit in both and would like to have an integrated solution? Or are there more practical reasons why these two types of e-communities usually just don't mix?
-Steve
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