Making the web better for everyone. It’s definitely a worthy objective. That’s the ideology that Google has been putting forward over the past years with its AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) project. AMP is an open-source initiative that aims at increasing the download speed of interactive content on mobile web pages.
What’s behind the buzz?
In order to modernize email and enable developers to create a more engaging and interactive experience, Google has decided to bring its AMP technology to Gmail, its emailing platform.
AMP for email will enable users to complete tasks such as filling out a form, replying to an invitation, viewing a slideshow or making an appointment directly in the email. The technology will also make it easier to update information in the email in real time so that it’s always accurate when the user views it.
Good news or not?
Some will shout “YES” without hesitation. Finally! The much-awaited evolution in email.
But not so fast…
Yes, it may be relevant and interesting for certain use cases. One example would be for Doodle, which has developed a prototype that allows the user to respond to a request for an appointment without having to go on the website.
This principle of accomplishing a specific task in an email could also be applied to rate a product on a scale of 1 to 5 for instance.
Travel agencies are probably also excited to learn that AMP for email will make it easier to update information and allow them to display flight and hotel rates in real time for the client.
On the other hand, will AMP for email really allow us to accomplish much more in the inbox than what we are already able to through existing languages?
And, as a marketer, you have to ask yourself what is the real purpose of your email. Wouldn’t you prefer that people visit your website rather than stick to the inbox? Wouldn’t you want to lead the visitor to where he/she can enjoy a better browsing experience and see a wider choice of products?
The dark side of AMP
But what is making people cringe with the AMP for email announcement is that instead of pooling its efforts to standardize the email experience across its different platforms and applications, Google is introducing further fragmentation in an industry already in great need of standardization. It has basically decided to create a fourth language beyond the existing ones namely HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Google has announced AMP support for Gmail for later this year. However, the other email platforms will most likely not be ready to offer this support (if they even decided to offer it at all!).
Let’s see how it all unfolds and what the future holds for our inbox!