Spark Launch
Last week we've launched Spark
, a smart and fast email client for iPhone. In just 2 days, we've had over 100K users and dozens of reviews in the press and media.
But, the ultimate goal for us is to create a cross-platform service that will change the way we communicate via email — which we believe is currently broken.
Contextual Communication
It seems that email is not going anywhere. Although a lot of teams moved to cool services like Slack, email still plays an integral part of business communication and surely will do for the next 5–10 years. For this reason, we didn't want to "re-invent email". Our goal was simply to improve those parts of email that are broken.
Although we've improved almost every core aspect of an email app, I'd like to focus on those parts that improve our contextual communication abilities.
Quick Replies is a great tool to acknowledge receipt of an email and reply to the person with just one tap. What's interesting is that unlike "canned replies", this instrument kind of says that the conversation is done, similar to how we use emoji or canned responses in text messages. So, one email won't become a thread of back and forth communications that don't carry much value. We have started with just 3 options — Like, Thanks, and Smile — but that will be expanded to 14 soon.
Example: I get an email from my designer with new mockups for the website, It takes me just a second to press the "Thanks" button to let him know that everything is good and I got this email. Contextual knowledge will play a big part in communication between teams and friends, so Quick Replies will save you time and give instant, emotional feedback to the other person.
Mutual Respect
I truly believe that online ethics should be based on principles we follow offline. Someone much wiser than I once said: "Act online the same way you would in real life". Thus, every communication should be based on **Mutual Respect*
* and we see more and more of this online. Assuming that, we decided to add **Read Receipts
** as one of the core features of Spark.
We see value in Read Receipts, as they add important contextual knowledge to your communication. Communications are too easily lost or missed nowadays, so it's nice to at least have an inkling whether someone has read what you've sent.
Writing an email is only half of the equation. The other, natural, part is to know that the other person has read your message. And here you have to treat the conversation with respect. If a person reads your email, you know about it, there's no follow up needed, or there should not be social pressure to reply.
Email is different to instant messaging, and this is why a person might take as much time to reply as he/she needs. Or, a person may choose not to reply at all and that's his/her choice, so treat it with respect. Trust me, if your email is interesting and important, you will get a reply no matter what.
We've added Quick Replies and Read Receipts for a good cause. And we do believe these concepts will improve the way we communicate, providing contextual knowledge and respect to people through email.
Denys Zhadanov
Head of Marketing,
Readdle.
