Google brings dynamic content to emails with AMP

Google has detailed its plans to use its open source AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) framework to bring dynamic content to emails.

The company has released a developer preview of its AMP for Email Spec.

“This new spec will be a powerful way for developers to create more engaging, interactive, and actionable email experiences,” Gmail product manager Aakash Sahney wrote in a blog entry.

“For example, imagine you could complete tasks directly in email. With AMP for Email, you’ll be able to quickly take actions like submit an RSVP to an event, schedule an appointment, or fill out a questionnaire right from the email message.”

The spec will make it possible for the content of an email to be updated when necessary; for changes in flight times.

“Our goal is to enhance and modernize the email experience through added support for dynamic content and interactivity while keeping users safe,” AMP developer William Chou wrote in an issue opened on the AMP project’s GitHub repository.

“We propose to do this by allowing email publishers to embed AMP directly in a message body as a new MIME part—text-x-amphtml—which will be rendered by email clients (with graceful fallback to non-AMP content). Our proposed name for this project is ‘AMPHTML Email’.”

The spec will support modern phishing and spam mitigation strategies and network requests will be anonymous to help preserve users’ privacy, Chou wrote.

Google will begin integrating support for the new spec in Gmail later this year.