Social Apps with Email

Email combined with isync, makes it is possible to access email offline and have it synced on a regular interval.

I looked around for options for having a shared TODO list with Andrea and sometimes the most obvious solution is what is in front of you. All the local-solutions that I have used in the past made sharing difficult, and neither one of us wanted to sign-up for some third-party service nor download an app just for TODO items. Then I started thinking about how I have always shared links with myself in the past, which was through email.

Well, thanks to fastmail's web filters, I was able to set up a specific email-address that Andrea and I could use to share TODO items between each other. All email sent to that email address ends up in my TODO inbox. How do I share TODO items? Well, just add Andrea on CC and then it's done. No sign-up to a new service needed. When the item is complete, I just reply done and then my email rule will automatically drag it to my Done archive.

Similarly, I use this as my social bookmarking service. I have a special email-address and a email rule so that when that address receives links from the right people, those links end up automatically in my links archive.

These two solutions work cross-device as well. All my devices have email so sharing across BSD, iOS, and Android becomes trivial. All of them support email.

This could be further extended with interfaces that operate on the isync directory. You could then have TODO apps that use email as a backend, and what is nice is that people would not need to download an app to operate on it, so it would be a form of "progressive enhancement".

- Marc