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Ask HN: Why don't emails seem use interactive Gmail features?

3 points by michaelmior ↗ HN
I'm referring primarily to things. Firstly, is Actions[0] where an email can embed metadata which causes a button to show in the inbox which can complete an action without even opening a message.

The second is AMP for Gmail[1] which enables interactive components within the message itself.

I understand that any users need to be approved by Google, so I'm wondering if this might be the bottleneck? It just seems like with the large number of Gmail users, this could lead to some easy boosts on conversion rates, but I rarely ever see any senders make use of either of these features. On one hand, I'm thankful since it could make things very cluttered. But I'm still left wondering why this is the case.

[0] https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/actions/actions-overview [1] https://developers.google.com/gmail/ampemail

12 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 41.2 ms ] thread
housemusicfan
Using GMail-proprietary extensions in email is probably one of the worst ideas ever conceived.
byoung2
It just uses open source markup from https://schema.org/, so there is no reason that other email clients couldn't implement it as well.
michaelmior
I'd really like to see Fastmail or Proton Mail implement this, but I think the majority of their customers would probably prefer they didn't.
michaelmior
Why do you say that? As another commenter points out, the actions there is at least some standard associated with the actions. I also think they can degrade pretty gracefully if not supported. Certainly that's the case with Actions. Non-Gmail users will probably never be aware they exist.
housemusicfan
If Google feels so strongly about this, they can publish an RFC for it. We went through this with Microsoft 20 years ago. Let's not repeat history.
byoung2
I have wondered this as well. Nearly 10 years ago I applied to yCombinator with an idea for a new type of email that was based on semantic markup in messages that would enable hundreds of these types of actions to be done right in the message view, without ever leaving the app. At the time we identified Gmail actions as a major threat, since they had I think 4 actions. I fully expected that in a decade, there would be hundreds of them and they would be commonplace. Things like book now, buy now, answering a multiple choice question, etc. But 10 years later and adoption seems to be less, not more.
michaelmior
I think it would be near impossible to break into this space from the outside. I can't imagine how anyone aside from a major email provider would be able to meaningfully implement this as a business. It seems you would have to rely on the major players to implement this, and if they do, why would they pay you at all for it?
byoung2
That's why we're stuck with Gmail as the state of the art 10 years later.
byoung2
From our YC app we explained that our plan for adoption would focus on add-ons for existing email clients to display the markup and to capture metadata when emails are composed (Gmail and Chrome extensions, plugins for Outlook, Thunderbird, etc). We would also for partnerships with email marketing companies like ConstantContact and MailChimp to add these to their templates. The idea would be to charge the companies running campaigns for API calls made from the end users' email clients (SaaS model).
michaelmior
That seems like a pretty sensible path. Somehow at the time I wrote my comment I hadn't considered the fact that many popular email clients are extensible.
mikecoles
Who would use a proprietary system with email? Spammers? Marketers (spammers with fancy clothes)?

I have seen a few in the past. They provide no value to users.

If a marketer wants it, I do not. If a marketer uses them, no business will be done. I also permanently ban any business that cold contacts or contacts after the initial information, that I requested, has been delivered.

michaelmior
It's not really that proprietary even if Gmail is the only one implementing it. I personally find I get value out of it when it is implemented well, which is why I'm curious why it isn't done more.