Cloudy Thinking

My total time using LaszloMail has been very limited, because I live in two other email systems: Goggle Mail for personal, Thunderbird w/IMAP for work. Using LasloMail (Lmail, according to me) is extra work. Call it a labor of flirting.

Using Lmail is not a labor of love, because I love Gmail and of course I really love my wife. And my faithful dog is in the mix somewhere.

I am curious about how my user experience will differ when the email service leverages a rich client interface as compared with a smart, modern AJAX-y web browser approach.

Early observations, take with a pound of salt:

I do notice the time to download the Lmail client. I haven’t timed it, but would estimate that using by zippy Internet connectivity at work it’s about 10 seconds. I can live with that, but I expect a lot in return. Gmail usually comes up very quickly. Call it almost instant on.

What you get in return for that brief wait is a lot of local power with no need to refresh the page across the network. That’s not too shabby. You also get a richer look and feel than what’s feasible in the best of CSS, DHTML yada yada yada. Simple stuff like showing where the cursor focus is in forms is more elegant. The buttons to control stuff have a slightly 3D look and feel.

Lmail still has some growing up to do, a few more ice cream seasons… no, I did NOT say that.

Unrelated to Lmail the application, I can report that the LasloMail team is awake. Someone names Sarah wrote:

So, what would it take to make you fall in love? (I know… if you have to ask…)

Just curious,
Sarah

In this intertwingled, global Internet Cloud we all live in, do you have any clue how rare it is that somebody even asks your option?

Microsoft doesn’t know who I am. Google and Yahoo likewise.

Yet somebody from Laszlo writes an intelligent even witty remark? How cool is that?

As a product manager at heart, I’ll now provide the Lmail team some free focus group (of one!) feedback. They get it free. How cool is that?

That’s an unfair advantage they have. They earned it.

So sue me.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 11th, 2005 at 7:54 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.