I think I use email quite efficiently. I'm sharing some of those thoughts. This is sevitzdotcom's guide to email and this is Part 4. There are 7 parts
- Why you should have 3 email addresses
- Why you should have your own domain
- Why you should use server side email
- Why you should use Google for Applications (gmail for your domain)
- How to set it up Google for Applications
- Setting up mail on your iPhone and Mail.App Correctly
- Smart folders and ways to manage your email
You know I wish this all would work better. It's one of those technologies that should work perfectly (we're almost there) but doesn't. It causes a lot of frustration. I believe email is more than just email these days. It's the whole caboodle, email, contacts and calendaring. (and event perhaps tasks/todos, but I think is almost a special part of calendaring and won't cover that here).
Oh but I can hear you comment now "I just need email, not the whole caboolde". Well yes I suppose you do. But who are you emailing? Your contacts right? And really you want you contacts in the same way you want your email. That is to say,
- On the server so you can access it anywhere (and not lose it)
- Synced up with all your email clients (web, desktop, phone)
Everything I said about email really applies equally to contacts. It amazes me how many people lose their phone and lose their address book. I don't blame the people (up to recently) it's been quite tough to sync your phone electronically. This is changing though.
And calendaring? Well we all arrange events, and we all send invites, and we do a lot of this by email now.A good email/calandering system is the most efficient way of doing this and shared calendaring helps organise things. Many of my coupled friends (and now me to) use a shared calendar to avoid social conflicts or organise shared events.
However due to weakness in consumer electronic calendaring systems, I don't think many people use it. Or as many as would find it useful and effective. But I don think their uptake and use case will increase, especially with younger generations.
The best system for email/calander/contacts as a whole system is Outlook connecting to Outlook Exchange. Partly because it's all been designed by one company and partly because it was built for people who needed all three things. However it's not a real consumer option as far as I am concerned, and has many business functions probably not needed by consumer users. It's also relatively pricey.
I think the future will have a similar system where email (IMAP), calendaring (caldav) and contacts (LMAP/who knows) all work and sync seamless between devices, the web and applications. But we're not there yet, annoyingly so.
So whilst we work towards this great syncing future the consumer options are, really the big 4.
- Microsoft Hotmail / Live Mail
- Yahoo Mail Plus
- Apple Mobile Me
- Google gMail
Quick thoughts on the non google options (which I'll caveat is not a review, just my high level thoughts why I don't use them)
- Microsoft is probably a good long term bet, as they have a lot of good background with Outlook. However they don't get the internet to a degree (their relative lack of success here and corporate DNA I feel show this). They also like to do things their way and I don't believe this offers the flexibility I keep looking for in my other blogs on the series.
- Yahoo. Well what's to say about Yahoo? They definitely get the internet, but they are fractured, not sure what kind of company they are, charge for Mail Plus, but I don't believe give enough value for this. And last I looked didn't have a great IMAP solution, and I'm not sure about their contact syncing.
- Apple's mobile me, is something I want to be perfect. And it will be a very strong consumer solution one day. I'd even bet that they will have a business offering at some point based on the work they are doing with OSX server. But it's not there yet (e.g. calendar imperfections). They also are moderately pricey (well compared to free and if you have multiple accounts) at $50 a year, although you do get further value with this, especially if you are a mac user. I also think because they do everything, it does hang everything together quite well. I think this will be a strong player in the future, but today it's pricey for imperfection.
So onto Google and their Google for Applications Free service.
So what I like about google
- It's free (as in beer) for up 200 accounts with 25GB storage per user
- It has a relatively easy to use control panel
- It has calendaring and contacts with syncing (which whilst not perfect is free)
- It's used by Google internally and is actively developed.
I think the last point is quite important. Because it's being used by google itself, it's more than just a business play. And because it's being actively developed many of the issues (I reckon) will get fixed.
Ideally I'd like to see MS using their Outlook experience and being far more competitive here, and Apple upping the stakes and dropping the price and giving us three strong options. I'd probably put MS as the weakest long term bets here (gut feel), but we'll see.
Problems with gmail. * Some tech experience needed * They like to do things their own and have some "odd" ways of doing things that well would be better done if they just stuck to convention (They are not dissimilar to MS in this respect) * You need a bit more of a hodge podge of tools to get syncing right * I'm not entirely sure they really get how to do pure consumer level stuff and I think Apple is stronger here, but they are improving, and they are aggressive about dominating.
So there you have it. No perfect solution.
But as a package deal of syncing major electronic services (email/contacts/calanders) I think priced at free, they are the best option at the moment.
I'd love for Apple to up the game, offer more attractive pricing, and a business level service to compete with Hosted Exchange, and I feel this (or at least the first) is a long play for them.
At the moment though, the game is Googles to lose.
(I'll cover setting up gApps in my next blog post)
1. Matt
There really is no ideal do-it-all solution is there? I think Google are going to be the ones that get there first (for free) though, they’re 97% of the way there already.