Today we’re introducing Raindrop, an exploration in messaging innovation being led by the team responsible for Thunderbird, to explore new ways to use Open Web technologies to create useful, compelling messaging experiences.

We hope to lead and spur the development of extensible applications that help users easily and enjoyably manage their conversations, notifications, and messages across a variety of online services. A central principle behind Raindrop is that messaging should be personal — we want Raindrop to be people-centric both in how we process messages, and in how we can help give people control over their personal data and experiences.

When a friend’s link from YouTube or flickr arrives, your messaging client should be able to show the video or photos near or as part of the message, rather than rudely kicking you over to a separate browser tab. Notifications from computers and mailing lists should be organized for you, not clutter your Inbox or require tedious manual filter setup. It should be easy to smoothly integrate new web services into your conversation viewer entirely using open web technologies.

The post doesn’t remains a little too vague to offer a specific vision of what they are talking about.  Essentially, it sounds like Raindrop will be some sort of aggregator for conversation on the web, delivering messages to you in an email-like format.  The “fundamental ideas” video shines the light a little bit more on the idea of intelligently culling “personal” messages (as opposed to bulk) from your various streams. (P.S. The video didn’t play correctly for me, but you can watch it in large-format at Vimeo here).

The "Second Iteration" of the Raindrop Interface

As I have obviously not yet had the opportunity to try out Raindrop, I can’t really give any sort of review of the service.  However, I think that the design principles here are interesting; with the increasing number of conversation platforms appearing on the web, the need for intelligent aggregation is growing quickly.  Even Friendfeed, the leading social web aggregator, felt unmanageable to me at times, and they weren’t even trying to deal with email!

I also enjoyed the use of “Raindrop” as a name, as it conjured up (for me) a very specific comparison with another possibly water-themed product.  While Google Wave’s approach to aggregating information is to literally inundate you with it and force you to use the search function to paddle your way out, Raindrop (in theory, at least) seems to focus on keeping messages separate, allowing you to catch a few in your hand when you need them.