I tried for a couple of weeks Yahoo’s new email interface. It promised to do a lot of things simple web interfaces could not. Dragging and dropping files and messages, complete listing of messages, faster searches, etc. Most of the functionalities resembled a stand-alone Outlook email client.
None of these features justified, however, the horrendous slowness of the new interface. Loading took about a minute and changing between states was always sluggish. Scrolling through the messages was snaily, barely justifying the new features.
I reverted to the old interface, which although less flexible, loads fast, sorts quite satisfactory and searches pretty well. This highlights, once more, that the richer the web application, the more important to have fast and probably prioritized delivery. This is important to mention in the context of the fierce debate against creating delivery methods that prioritize certain types of content.
Some people seem to believe that the future of the West should’ve been the Pony Express and the Calistogas, since they would’ve preserved the “commons of innovation” that the unexplored prairie represented. Highways, toll roads? Boo, they will destroy the pleasure of our virtual safari.