Will (AMP + Gmail), AMPlify the user productivity or increase the AIL?
It is said that
patience is the key for success, but it is not true in all situations,
specially when your webpage is loading. I mostly wait few seconds for page to
load and if it is not loaded I move on. This is the nature of most of us.
Nature of impatience.
In my previous article, I discussed about, how google is trying to solve this problem, by
introducing, Accelerated Mobile Programming in 2015, where page content is
loaded first, then associated JavaScript and so on. As a result, the page load
under 1 second, with at least an improvement of around 2.7 seconds from the
legacy systems. This is much better for both end users and business where much
of the revenue is generated from Ad Network like google AdSense.
Seeing the success
of AMP. Google announced on 13-14 Feb 2018, in the Conference in Amsterdam, to
implement AMP for Gmail. This will be one of the biggest change for Gmail in a
way.
Aakash Sahney,
who is Gmail product manager writes in his post, referring AMP, “This new spec
will be a powerful way for developers to create more engaging, interactive, and
actionable email experiences,”. Though it is impressive to have such dynamic
implementation of an idea, but google is not the only one out there, Facebook’s
Instant Articles and Apple News are also well known competition in this field.
What in it for user?
Rolling the
changes for Gmail which is one of the world's leading email service. To get the
idea, on how big Gmail is, launched in
2004, Gmail already has 1.2 billion users, 20% of email market share with 1
billion app download. Naturally, change in service this humongous, will have
deep impact worldwide.
Bringing AMP to
Gmail will have both positive and not so positive repercussions. Let’s discuss
positive first
Since, AMP is
designed to make pages more responsive and fast to load under a second, AMP +
Gmail looks really promising.
AMP will make
Gmail pages mobile friendly which means, the layout of Gmail will be according
to smaller handheld devices. The pages will become more space efficient thereby
increasing productivity. The navigation will be less painful due to page
composition. AMP is also known for its dynamic real-time content handling which
essentially means the reduction of page refresh.
The Gmail will
become more interactive from mobile perspective and the page will be lighter
than normal desktop page.
One thing that
will enable Gmail through AMP is single window kind of operation. User will be
able to create the meeting invite, update it, form filling, booking tickets are
to name a few while still working in Gmail. This of Course is convenient,
instead of swapping between different apps or webpages.
Other school of thoughts
There is other
school of thought which is, not so positive and is reluctant to adopt this
change. The argument here is that Gmail + AMP is like giving more control over
our data to these interactive contents through a channel, which is only meant
for static communication. Now, dynamic actionable content will have trackers
and more annoyingly, ADs. This means companies that want their content to be in
the Gmail AMP environment must comply with google rather than Gmail adapting to
already existing mature environment we have. This will suit more to Google
business model but may not be much appreciated by the rest.
The bottom line
But, Gmail +
AMP is not out just yet for you to use. It is currently in developer preview
stage, which means that the developer who are registered with the google can
now experiment with their app to make it AMP compatible for Gmail. like
Pinterest and Doodle etc.
There are
speculations about the launch date of Google + AMP for end users to be around
mid of this year, in Google's developer conference, which is likely to be held
in May 2018.
This brings us
to the adoption rate of the developer and user, is remained to be seen. It all
boils down to ease of use, convenience and development cycle for the developer.
My thoughts
My favorite
part of this venture is, real time updates with interactive contents in mail itself
without leaving Gmail.
Save, select categories, show details of a recipe... All within the #amp email @Pinterest 👏👏👏 #AMPConf #AMPsterdam pic.twitter.com/viIhkvunJp— Tobias Willmann (@WillmannTobias) February 13, 2018
Google has made
AMP an open specification, which means that it is an open source platform and
can be implemented by any email client service to use without any charge like we
have android. But there is no such thing as free lunch. We will have fair share
of Ads and Business Model around it after the implementation of client service.
Still, open
source will ensure wider adoption of the service and will increase its
popularity as well. More third-party involvement means more integrated service
of different types, for which otherwise I have to open different apps or browse
through multiple websites. Just by opening Gmail, I will be able get most out
of it, which is like icing on the cake.
Comments
Post a Comment