Today we’re introducing Raindrop, an exploration in messaging innovation being led by the team responsible for Thunderbird, to explore new ways to use Open Web technologies to create useful, compelling messaging experiences.
We hope to lead and spur the development of extensible applications that help users easily and enjoyably manage their conversations, notifications, and messages across a variety of online services. A central principle behind Raindrop is that messaging should be personal — we want Raindrop to be people-centric both in how we process messages, and in how we can help give people control over their personal data and experiences.
When a friend’s link from YouTube or flickr arrives, your messaging client should be able to show the video or photos near or as part of the message, rather than rudely kicking you over to a separate browser tab. Notifications from computers and mailing lists should be organized for you, not clutter your Inbox or require tedious manual filter setup. It should be easy to smoothly integrate new web services into your conversation viewer entirely using open web technologies.
Raindrop 0.1: A Prototype
To this end, we’ve started Raindrop, which we hope will become both a customizable product and a platform for a variety of innovative messaging applications on the Web. We’ve also drafted a set of principles that we believe will help ensure that it is as useful, usable, and compelling as possible. Today, we’re releasing version 0.1, which is very much an iterating prototype, not yet ready for everyday use. Join us and help drive it there!
Design
What does a conversation on today’s web look like? Email used to house the bulk of the conversations that took place on the internet, but that’s no longer the case today. In today’s world people use a combination of Twitter, IM, Skype, Facebook, Google Docs, Email, etc. to communicate. For many of us this means that we have to keep an eye on an ever-growing number of places we might get new messages. As a result, we never know that we’ve actually processed all the important messages, because our email has been overwhelmed by noise which obscures the real messages from real people.
Raindrop is an effort that starts by trying to understand today’s web of conversations, and aims to design an interface that helps people get a handle on their digital world. At the same time, it creates a programming interface (API) that helps designers and developers extend our work and create new systems on top of that data. We aren’t trying to invent new protocols or build new messaging systems, rather focusing on building a product that lets users get a handle on the systems we already use.
The Raindrop team has already gone through 2 initial iterations which demonstrate the power of the platform we already have and the possibilities that lay ahead.
The following video discusses some of the fundamental ideas in today’s Raindrop.
First iteration of the Raindrop user interface
Second iteration of the Raindrop design
Development Platform
We intend to support front-end applications of various kinds (including mobile), but our flagship applications will be built entirely for any modern web browser that supports Open Web technologies. Version 0.1 of our prototype embeds Bespin to support a fast, iterative development style. It also provides front-end widgets and back-end code that supports important high-level concepts such as people, conversations, and mailing lists, with more to come. CouchDB and Python are key parts of our prototype architecture as well.
What’s Next
We’re just getting started and expect Raindrop to evolve quickly.
One of our first priorities is to make downloadable installers or setup a hosted installation that anyone can use to try things out — making it easier for non-developers to check it out.
Because Raindrop is very much iterative and design-driven, another priority is to implement a default configuration that asks (but does not require!) each user to contribute anonymized usage data back to the Mozilla design community in a way that respects your privacy.
We’re tracking other priorities in our evolving roadmap.
Get Involved
Mozilla Labs is a virtual lab where people come together online to create, experiment and play with Web innovations for the public benefit. The Raindrop exploration is still in its infancy and just getting started.
All of the source code underlying the Raindrop exploration & prototype is being released as open source software under the the MPL.
There are many ways to join the team and get involved:
- Ask questions and contribute ideas at our GetSatisfaction community.
- Upload a mock-up or design to the Raindrop Design group on Flickr.
- Pull the source code and start hacking.
- Join us in our chat room.
We’ll also be using the #raindrop hashtag on twitter. Our community page has more details about these and other ways to connect.
– Andy Chung, Bryan Clark, Dan Mosedale, David Ascher, Mark Hammond, and James Burke on behalf of the Raindrop development team
[...] interessante Idee kommt aus den Mozilla Labs – Raindrop – wenn man davon ausgeht, dass eMail heute eigentlich nur mehr einen Teil der Online [...]
[...] Check the blog [...]
Raindrop not Google Wave…
Thank you for submitting this cool story – Trackback from CodingFuture…
[...] gibt es Raindrop als Prototypen mit der Nummer 0.1 und kann unter labs.mozilla.com im Quelltext heruntergeladen werden. Eine installierbare Version ist in [...]
[...] produits d’Apple annoncés cette semaine sur Welovemac et MacPlus. • Mozilla Raindrop : centraliser vos flux d’informations en un seul endroit. • Auto/Moto : 5 logiciels pour préparer vos examens sous Mac ! • Mac OS [...]
[...] informacji o Raindrop znajdziecie na stronie Mozilla Labs. Przed projektem jest ciągle daleka droga, ale sama idea takiego narzędzia bardzo mi odpowiada [...]
[...] has announced an interesting project called Raindrop, which appears massively complicated on the surface but is actually quite a simple idea when you [...]
Just installed Raindrop
Looks interesting and would love to extend it
[...] the weekend I started checking out the newest project out of the Mozilla Labs, Raindrop. To some it might sound a little like Google Wave – however it offers much more, and is [...]
[...] der ligger i programmet. Den første prototype er netop offentliggjort og på Mozillas Labs websted om Raindrop kan man hente en video, som viser nogle af de fundamentale [...]
[...] der ligger i programmet. Den første prototype er netop offentliggjort og på Mozillas Labs websted om Raindrop kan man hente en video, som viser nogle af de fundamentale [...]
[...] : Blog Mozilla Labs Wave Messagerie [...]
[...] Here is a video from the Mozilla Labs Blog about Raindrop. [...]
It seems that RainDrop will be available quickly and may be easily adoptable by users. Probably FireFox users will be the early adopters. Hope to see the version 1.0 soon!
[...] Plus d’info sur le site du Lab Mozilla [...]
[...] Labs (u.a. „Thunderbird„) stellten mit „Raindrop“ am vergangenen Donnerstag einen neuen, intelligenten Meta-Messenger vor, der sich derzeit als Prototyp (Version 0.1) in der [...]
Now a day, it seems the main issue of all digital software is communication. Google Waves and Raidrop. These are two real different solutions to our way to communicate, but it’s interesting to consider both of them.
The way we were talking years ago has definitively changed and our software need to be rethinked. The demonstration as the ideas looks really great and I hope, like many people, to get news soon!
@xethorn
Fantastic idea! When will we get an executable? Is there any chance this could front-end Gmail as well?
I am seriously seriously eager to start using this!
[...] “A central principle behind Raindrop is that messaging should be personal” (Mozilla Labs – Introducing Raindrop) [...]
[...] Labs is also working on a project called Raindrop, led the by the Thunderbird team, to address the issue of managing email and the countless [...]
Cool and everything, but please _before_ Raindrop focus on:
1. Thunderbird 3
2. Lightning/calendar
3. Jabber/IM
Then do all this cool stuf… But before mail and calendaring works this should be left for dreams of the future.
[...] экспериментальных разработок Mozilla представила первый рабочий прототип проекта Raindrop, нацеленного на [...]
[...] on many projects. In fact, I like the Thunderbird e-mail client quite a lot. But in Mozilla Labs there’s a new project called Raindrop that is supposed to unify messaging from multiple [...]
So what – this is basically an implementation of e-mail filtering? Come on! you need to try a wee bit harder guys… however “clean” and “sweet” the interface looks, you have to offer something that’s functionally more interesting than has been around for years now at the e-mail client.
And Twitter? Facebook? Whaa-aa? Can we please focus on something that has a real world, practical application beyond Heat magazine appreciation?
I think this will be hugely popular and more useful than Google Wave!
[...] de Mozilla Labs annonce le lancement d’une nouvelle plate-forme de communication appelée Raindrop. Menée par [...]
I liked it. So much useful material. I read with great interest.
Hallo
My name is Tony, I am an administrator for a small dutch forum comunity, At this moment I am useing your latest released version of firefox en mozilla mail
I would like to try together with my friends, your nieuw version of mesaging. It sounds very exiting, and we are allways looking for new ideas and programs wich we can share with our comunity.
I hope you can give us the chance to test the produkt
Friendly regards
Tony
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by damien douani and Web Explorer, Alexandre Cabanis. Alexandre Cabanis said: RT: @damiendouani: Raindrop, le Wave de Mozilla http://bit.ly/1xKM4l [...]
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by davidvb: RT @IATV: Mozilla Raindrop, the next big thing after Google Wave … http://bit.ly/2yonya (labs.mozilla.com)…
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I must say that I am looking forwarded to this project, it has a great concept. Hope it pans out.
I am looking forward for this wonderful software
I have a question for one of the mozilla staff… Will raindrop be compatible windows live mail if not why and if you are going to when would be a guesstimated time of the arrival of this feature?
I also would love to have this “Raindrop” too !! When can I…. please,please,please…. can I have it !!
[...] For those of you who have not heard about Mozilla Raindrop yet, I suggest you check it out. It could be somewhat of a rival to google wave. It’s currently in the developing stages. You can find it here. [...]
[...] team at Mozilla tries to tackle this problem with their Raindrop project. The general idea is that the email inbox should be smart about which messages are the most [...]
[...] gibt es mit Mozilla Raindrop, Google Wave, Pio.io oder auch die Aggregation innerhalb von Facebook verschiedene Ansätze auf [...]
[...] Raindrop progetto Mozilla vs Google Wave (messaggistica integrata) [...]
I hope Raindrop will rationalize social networks + email management, which now drains too much time.
[...] Voici la présentation de raindrop (en Anglais) sur la page des labos de Mozilla. [...]
This looks awesome! I’m kind of more excited about this than the Google Wave preview I have (not that they do *exactly* the same thing… but, nonetheless).
[...] that creates useful messaging experiences. Mozilla Labs posted details of its project, called Raindrop, which is a Web service created to collate, filter and present content from disparate messaging [...]
I like the ideas presented about Rain Drop. I totally agree with the idea that personal messages shouldn’t be drowned out by advertisements and other trivial things.
Being able the sort the “business”, “personal”, and “advertisements” around and get to the ones you want to see when you want to see them will definite feature all email clients should consider and implement.