Bill Kearney

Mail to blog ain't gonna cut it

I'm seeing a bunch of folks experimenting with mail to blog sort of functionality. I hate to break it to you folks but that's not going to cut it for the vast majority of people out there. The reason? They only have one mailbox.

On the face of it seems like a good idea. Trouble is most places can't do this.

I'm not one to say it's worthless. I'm simply saying that the staggering majority of users out there can't create extra mailboxes. They're not admins of their boxes. And the admins of said boxes aren't going to give them new ones. That and most mail isn't coming into a shell script accessible mailbox.

Don't get me started on the morass that is POP3 and IMAP handling.

Believe me, I've thought long and hard about this. There are just too many fragilities in the various hacks needed to make it work.

I *do* agree that there needs to be a better way for us to contact our own personal "digital concierge". I don't see mail as being a viable way to do it. There's just too many extra pieces to configure.

IM, on the other hand... now there's an interesting possiblity...