By integrating, i'm referring for example à la Posterous, where a user can send an e-mail to Posterous which converts it into a post.<p>How is it being done? integration with e-mail servers? Custom daemon?<p>Inquiring mind wants to know.
A simple, primitive way would be something like this:<p>- connect to the stmp server of the service in question
- log in with your username/password (the server now verifies you have access; it's nothing interesting so far).
- in case one has access, the session is done as usual.<p>Up until this point, there's nothing else needed but a properly configured SMTP server which can authenticate against whatever database you have.<p>Past this point, the email would get transferred to a program, like procmail, which processes the e-mail. It digs out the contents, and whatever other meta-information it needs.<p>Then uses the service's API to post the message.<p>This is an easy way to do it, but it doesn't scale all that well. However, it's fairly simple, and can be used as a learning tool.