I’m not going to beat around the bush on this idea, it just needs to get done, and I just don’t have the time. We need an archive.org for email newsletters, and other POP related elements of the digital world we have created for ourselves. Whether we love or hate the inbox layer of our life, it plays a significant role in crafting our daily reality. Bottom line, we don’t always keep the history that happens, and we should be recording it all, so that we can pause, and re-evaluate at any point in the future.
I cannot keep up with the amount of newsletters flowing into my inbox, but I do need to be able to access this layer, as I have the bandwidth available to process. Using Context.io, I need you to create an index of popular email newsletter indexes that are emerging. I feel like we are seeing a renaissance in email, in the form of the business newsletter--something I don't always have the time to participate in.
During the course of my daily monitoring, I received an email from Congress.gov, about a new legislative email newsletter, something that seems like something I’d be interested in, but then immediately I’m questioning my ability to process the new information:
- A specific bill in the current Congress - Receive an email when there are updates to a specific bill (new cosponsors, committee action, vote taken, etc.); emails are sent once a day if there has been a change in a particular bill’s status since the previous day.
- A specific member’s legislative activity - Receive an email when a specific member introduces or cosponsors a bill; emails are sent once a day if a member has introduced or cosponsored a bill since the previous day.
- Congressional Record - Receive an email as soon as a new issue of the Congressional Record is available on Congress.gov.
This is all information I’m willing to digest, but ultimately have to weight it alongside the rest of my information diet—a process that isn’t always equitable. If I could acknolwedge an email newsletter as something that I’m interested in, but only when I had time, I would be open to the adoption of a new service.
We need to record this layer of our history, something that our inboxes just aren’t doing well enough. I think we need a steward to step up, and be the curator of this important content that is being sent to our inboxes, and doesn’t always exist on the open Internet. Technically I do not think it would be too difficult to it using Context.io, I just think someone needs to spend a lot of time signing up for newsletters, and being creative in crafting the interface, and index for people to be able to engage with in meaningful ways, that people will actually find useful and pay for.
