Yahoo!

Oddpost

Oddpost is a pay-for webmail service that pioneered the use of JavaScript to mimic a desktop mail application. This design concept minimizes the amount of data that is sent during an email session by creating a JavaScript UI engine on the client side and sending "Datapacks" instead of reloading the whole interface on every click like a traditional webmail service (Hotmail, Yahoo!). This makes the service much faster than its counterparts.

Oddpost also has the design philosophy of making the interface invisible. All inessential non-data is eliminated from the interface. Unread message headers are Bolded, so there is no need for an unread message icon next to each message, Sub folders are indented under the parent, so there is no need for a little ant trail connecting each folder.

Excerpt from a 2003 interview with Ethan Diamond, the President and co-founder of Oddpost about this minimalist approach.

"This data-centric approach may sound painfully obvious, but consider that at 1024

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