Despite the competition and rumors of its demise, email remains a very prevalent part of our daily lives. (That’s one reason why Google continues to pour effort into Gmail.) Yet even with its familiarity, we’re still discovering new ways we can use email to control other applications and perform simple tasks.
Now WordPress.com has embraced email for exactly that purpose. A new WordPress.com feature – currently in closed beta – adds actual utility to those “You’ve got a comment” emails: Reply via Email.
For those WordPress.com hosted blogs that make it into the beta, replying to comments will be as easy as replying to email. Users simply fire off responses to comment-notification emails and their witty retorts appear in the comment string.
Voila! No more logging into the Web site to participate in the conversation.
As part of the announcement, the WordPress team has also hinted that threaded commenting may soon be part of the WordPress.com offering, as well.
WordPress.com users who are interested in test driving this new functionality can – ironically – head to the post on the topic and leave a comment to be included in the beta. But they’ll have to act fast. Participants will only be accepted until 6 PM PT (UTC-8) on October 24.
It’s safe to assume that this simple improvement to the current commenting workflow will be met with a favorable response. The comment thread for beta participants is already filling with people interested in using the new feature. No doubt threaded comments will be equally welcome. Although I have to admit, I’m curious as to how the threaded concept and this new email reply concept will mesh. Also on my mind? How the commenting features of Automattic’s Intense Debate acquisition will be folded into the WordPress family.
Perhaps we’ll hear more about all of this as we draw closer to the launch of WordPress 2.7 on November 10.
