How Not To Blog ?

Integrating RSS functions with email functions is a logical path for email. There isn't a clear solution to the spam problem in sight, emails are pretty much 'final' when sent, email addresses are generally inflexible, inboxes are generally a big mess, and a lot of email from friends and coworkers is redundant and unnecessary.

The following idea for a personal messenger helps to alleviate some of those problems.

Goodbye Email Address
Your new "email address" is a web location that may look something like:

https://secure.rssemail.com/user/thom_flan/49t3k202ikw03k1.xml

Your new address is now as permanent or disposable as you want it to be.

Ideally, you should provide a unique message address to each of your friends, family, etc. So, you would have as many address locations as you have friends and family. Click a button and the messenger automatically creates a unique message address and announces it to the parties you choose.

You can also provide unique addresses for groups. Your family would get one address, your friends another, businesses another, etc. You can provide a regular email forward (eg., [email protected] - good for one send per friend) to people when you're out so you don't have to remember or repeat your entirely unique RSS location.

Now, no one can send you an email simply by spamming random email addresses, like when you have a Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL account. You can also easily organize messages before you read them (see below). If a spammer somehow finds your address location, just block that location out automatically.

Move Over, Universal Inbox
Who thought of the universal inbox? Every piece of mail you receive coming in through the same door is like your mailbox at home. The benefit of being digital is that we can organize and manage email better, automatically.

You can automatically have all messages from Bob arrive into one or more particular folders, while putting Bob's wife in another. You can then put the two into categories. Additionally, you can have an Unknown folder where all messages from unknown senders end up.

The New Post
If someone sends you a new message they are actually 'pinging' your address location with their message. The message is live, meaning that the sender can change it as many times as they want before or after you read it. This is not only good for revisions and mistakes, among other things.

You can also automatically feed certain messages to your personal, private, or public website, or even other people. Messages shouldn't be 'sent'.. they should be posted in a manner that's accessible to both sender and receiver. This is the internet, after all.

Attachments could probably be sent to a FTP-type location for user-download, with the message ID tying the two together. RSS-based media enclosures may also work. Ideally, this would be sender-side, where the recipient would click on the remote URL to download to their desktop. Unless you really want all of Aunt Betty's uncompressed vacation photos sitting in your inbox.

Sending Messages is Just As Easy
To send a message, just click on a person's name or paste their feed URL into the address box. Write your message and send it as you normally would.

If you change your mind about something in the message, you can theoretically change it before the recipient has a chance to read it. Because the message is only received when a user refreshes their 'inbox' (as opposed to a server receiving it and not letting you do anything) there will be no regrets and less "disregard-that-last-email" messages.

Interface
Either a standalone client, web access, or both. A web location with a secure login would work best for mobility.

Obvious Benefits from Using RSS
-Much easier to receive messages on portable devices
-Possibly: ability to make some messages public (see below)
-Messages can be received more securely, using an SSL server instead of bouncing around unsecured mailservers.
-View posts on your terms (if, when how, etc.)
-No virii embedded in your messages
-Unwanted messages reduced tremendously
-Tag incoming and outgoing messages
-Easily opt-in and out of newsletters and other types of mass-mailings.
-A lot more that I haven't covered

Future Directions
I think the best reason to develop an 'rssmail'-type system is for the potential ability to change the access rights to messages that you send and receive. And that's because not all emails you currently receive or send are personal. These could be ported onto a more public platform, or made accessible by/to a selected list of users. So instead of sending an email to certain persons, those persons can choose to access your message feed at their convenience, then selecting which of those messages they want to read. ("Spam" from friends would be one example.)

My belief is that, one day, instead of opening up an email client and viewing email we will view our dynamic message feeds on our own blog-type pages. We won't send or receive messages in the traditional sense. We will announce what we want to send and select those that are worth reading. Some of these messages will be public. Other, private. We will also be able to view selected messages that our friends, family, co-workers, and companies that we do business with have themselves received and sent to others. The future of email... is open.