Kopanas

(In preparation for my presentation at this months CloudCamp. CloudCamp is a DemoCamp re-branded and run once a month internally at CloudRaker, my employeers. Same rules, same everything, we just get free pizza!)

I love web-based applications. I use web-based applications to manage my photo library, my professional and personal projects, my email and even my contacts to just name a few.

For the most part I have not found it to be inconvenient to input data into web-based application by pointing my browser to the site, logging in (if their is no remember my password function), click the appropriate button(s) or link(s) and enter my data into a web-based form.

Sometimes I can understand how this can be inconvenient or mess up your rhythm. Sometimes I am in the zone running through my emails and I just want to input something quickly or I am not in front of my computer and I need to enter data into one of my web-applications before I loose my thought. That’s when web-based application become tedious and get a bad rap.

But that does not need to be the case. Email is a hidden gem as a mechanism that can be designed to be used to input data into web-based applications we design. And the times we do consider it we tend to berry information about the technology and not bring it front and center for people to learn about it while using the app unless they are looking for the functionality.

What is the Jist Behind How Email As Input Works?

To be honest, I have not researched this enough to be the definitive guide on how to implement what are commonly called as “Drop Boxes”. A Drop Box in essence is a unique email address given to each user of a site that a user can send input to. The EMail server then parses the email address, the subject line and the body of the message to determine to whom the drop box belongs to and how the input for the email should be treated.

Examples will help explain my gobbly goop.

Examples of Web-Apps That I Feel Are Implementing Drop Boxes Really Well

Highrise

Highrise is 37signal’s vision of a CRM solution. A really good vision if I may say so myself. Highrise has an email drop box that you can easily forward emails you receive form a client and have them attached to the clients profile. If the email you forward to your highrise drop box does not have a profile then a profile is created for you.

To see how it works in detail visit: http://www.highrisehq.com/email

Backpack

Backpack is another product from 37signals. Backpack is way for you to manage your personal projects, to-do lists, notes, ideas and your schedule online.

Backpack supports email as an input more so then Highrise. You can forward emails like you do in Highrise to your drop box but you can also enter notes, to-dos and upload files that are then attached to your individual projects. (Each project has it’s own drop box)

As long as you enter a prefix for notes and todos or don’t put a subject at all for files and images (Note:, todo:, ) the rest is pretty straight forward.

To see how it works in detail visit: http://www.backpackit.com/email/

RememberTheMilk

RememberTheMilk is another web-based application that allows you to manage your to-do list. Remember The Milk’s drop box supports more sophisticated options but while supporting more options it can be argued that it makes the feature appear more complex. Personally, I think if the help page that explains how to use the drop box was layed out differently the drop box would enjoy the best of both worlds.

To see how it works in detail visit: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/sending/emailinbox.rtm

Flickr

My baby flickr, I almost forgot this one, you are on vacation in Italy on a shared computer at an internet cafe and you want to send the latest pictures you took to your family and friends as well as quickly post them to on flickr and fill in the details when you get back from vacation. That is also really easy but a feature that has been hidden from me for years it seems.

To see how it works in detail visit: http://www.flickr.com/help/photos/

Any other sites that I am missing who do a good job at using email drop boxes that I should mention here?