May 5, 2008
Xobni, the social email plugin for Outlook, which I highlighted previously has finally opened its doors as a public beta. I initially had some private beta invites that went very fast but I continued to receive inquiries. Now you can get your own copy of the latest Xobni product and test it out for yourself. These are also unconfirmed rumors that Microsoft is bidding to acquire Xobni so it would not be far fetched to think that Xobni could be integrated directly into Microsoft Outlook if the rumor becomes reality.
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March 31, 2008
Though email is a bit of burden at times, it is also in many cases the first point of contact for people as they go about their everyday routine. A large number of email users spend a significant part of their day working inside the email environments. Xoopit, a San Francisco-based startup is looking to capitalize on that point by looking to create a series of products that transform the email inbox into the largest social network. Xoopit takes a similar approach to Xobni an Outlook plugin which I highlighted previously and is rumored to be acquired very soon. Xoopit, today announced they had raised $5 Million Series A round of funding led by Accel Partners and Foundation Capital as they also rolled out a private beta.
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March 26, 2008
Is email broken? I have been struggling to manage email for a long time as I attempted to liberate my inbox back in 2005 only to once again stare email bankruptcy in the eyes. Email is such a double-edged sword since I need email to communicate but get so much of it becomes difficult to use effectively. I am not alone, I have heard the same things from a number of colleagues and recently TechCrunch editor and founder Mike Arrington even called the communication crisis produced by email a opportunity for an entrepreneur.
I recently met Jared Goralnick who is a bit of a productivity guru. Jared joined me on quick SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode number 17 (below). He recently founded AwayFind.com. AwayFind, a DC-based startup, looking to help ease some of the email burden so you can focus on your day-to-day tasks without constant interruptions. With AwayFind, which is currently in private beta, users can setup a page (like this one I created) to include in auto-response messages to anyone that emails them. The auto-response offers a little explanation as to when you might get to the mail and a form which can contact the user directly via SMS text messaging and email if the item being sent was an emergency or needs to be handled immediately.
Watch the latest SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode with Jared Goralnick now.
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February 18, 2008
On Valentine's Day, AOL released a sneak peek of the new AOL Desktop for Mac (beta 8), available for all Tiger(R) and Leopard(R) users (10.4.8 or higher). Here are some of the highlights they list on beta.aol.com:
* Increased Speed: Installs in seconds and launches quickly - so you can begin browsing immediately, without signing in.
* New Browser: An all new browser allows you to surf all your favorite sites faster than ever before.
* Tabbed Organization: Tabs on browser windows and instant messages offer easy access and an uncluttered, organized view of all windows.
* Integrated AIM: AIM is built right in so you can see which Buddies are online, chat and more.
* Customization: A highly customizable toolbar makes it easy to keep your favorites at your fingertips, as well as access them on any Internet-connected computer.
Continue reading for additional details on the new AOL Dashboard for the Mac.
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October 4, 2007
Email management is something I have written about several times. Most recently, I highlighted Xobni which has helped organize and expose some of the hidden social aspects of email. However, Xobni does not file or read your mail for you. SimplyFile, an Outlook utility by TechHit, helps to organize and file your email in one click.
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September 20, 2007
My email continues to overflow as I receive large amounts in several email accounts. I have written about email management a few times before so needless to say I was very excited to witness the private beta launch of Xobni at TechCrunch40. Xobni is more that just "inbox" spelled backwards as it offers a Microsoft Outlook plugin that helps to attack the email management problem and in doing so exposes the social network behind email. I installed Xobni and was quite impressed with its capabilities.
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September 3, 2007
The new AOL Mail has made quite a transformation since its beta launch in March as it continued to add features until it officially launched last week. The new AOL Mail product is very feature rich, Ajax email application with a nice interface.
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August 27, 2007
Shareaholic makes it easy to submit the web page you are currently viewing in a Firefox browser to Digg, del.icio.us, Facebook, Google bookmarks, Magnolia, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Twitter.
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August 17, 2007
I have written several times about my love/hate relationship with email. So I am definitely on the lookout for email management applications and I just across something interesting. Anymails, a project created by Carolin Horn as part of her thesis, allows you to visualize your received emails as microbes. The project objective is to offer the user another type of email experience.
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August 7, 2007
I recently used Contactify to setup a new form for submitting startups and service to be reviewed on Somewhat Frank. Submit one today!
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July 30, 2007
I have written about email management a couple of times (here & here) and yet I still struggle to keep both my professional and personal emails uncluttered. So I am always looking for suggestions as to how to handle such a large bulk of email. Nonetheless, I just noticed an...
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July 4, 2007
Email used to be so hip. Now it is such a pain in the ass. I have written about email management and liberating my email inbox before, but being on the road the last 19 days has turned my inbox upside down. Om Malik wrote a great piece today about...
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June 8, 2007
AOL Mail which I highlighted previously as it launched into beta has continued to change more than just its color palette from French gray to the more traditional AOL blue and gray as it improved over the past three months. I recently got a chance to sit down with Roy...
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March 8, 2007
Sporting a French gray color palette, AOL recently released a new AOL Mail Beta (codename: Cayman) to update the current web-based email product. It offers a clean Ajax interface extending a users usable space and making it easier to manage and organize large quantities of email. It is pretty slick....
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October 17, 2005
Is your email inbox so full you cannot find what you are looking for? My corporate Outlook account was, until just recently. Tribune Interactive's new Product Development Manager, Carlos Pero, recommended a paper he had read a few months prior about managing your email account. He mentioned it was on the 37 Signals weblog, so I did a quick archive search and found this article by Mark Hurst titled Managing Incoming Email: What Every User Needs To Know. I read through it and was able to clean up my inbox from over 1000 emails to just 2.
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