On Email Bankruptcy
12 May 2010
Let me first give credit for that phrase to Fred Wilson, a NYC venture capitalist who blogged about email overload earlier this week. I came across his post, and a post by Mark Suster in response (continuation) to Fred’s. These guys are speaking out about a real problem for people like us who want to be available and need to keep track of what’s going on.
The purpose of this post is mostly to say “me too”, and also to point out a couple of startups they link to that I’m excited to have found. I setup accounts for both, and am pleased they exist.
The two startups are:
Gist. I have to say, I had this idea a while ago (I’m sure I’m not the only one). I’m glad to see someone’s building it. Looks great, though admittedly I’ve only watched the video on their home page. I will check this out shortly. I hope they have a mobile app in the works.
Etacts. Don’t like the name, but what got me excited was Etacts’ firefox extension that appears to be Xobni for gmail. Of course, Xobni has been around a lot longer and is way cooler, but… having moved to a Mac two+ years ago, I’ve been Xobni-less for a while now. Etact’s web site doesn’t do it for me… but I’m hoping their plugin does. I like their ideas… and they can only get better over time. They’re getting at the “right” information, I hope they learn how to help me make email more useful.
Of course, these are both for Gmail. I get enough Gmail, especially with my work on Where’s Your Heart?. What I really need though is something for Mac Mail and corporate email. I do wish Xobni would help me.
Anyways, check out these companies and let me know what you think. I’m always looking for ways to be more productive.
May 13, 2010 @ 01:41:21
Hi David, Thanks for the post! I would like to introduce you to another startup called Taroby which has worked wonderfully well for a us, in solving Email Overload. Do check it out!
http://blog.taroby.org/how-taroby-manages-information-overload/2009/07/21/
May 13, 2010 @ 10:15:59
Andy,
Please to meet you, and thank you for your comment. I’m on a really slow hotel connection, so I can’t fully check out Taroby. Good luck. I think you take a different approach than I would need to — looks like Taroby might have some nice features for collaborating around email, whereas I’m a team of one… looking to streamline my own email(s) around my relationships with individuals, company’s, and with respect to projects/customers.
Feel free to drop me a line from time to time on how you’re doing. I’m curious to hear of the progress you make.
Cheers,
David
May 14, 2010 @ 15:48:29
Hey David,
We just read your post about email overload and we love the fact that you’re offering solutions to this problem for your readers. Finding solutions to email overload is also what we try to do here at http://www.OtherInbox.com.
To handle email overload, we built Organizer, which automatically organizes your email. The best thing about it is that you can jump right to the emails you care about the most and ignore the ones you don’t care to read immediately. The bulk emails are then filed away, leaving you with a clean, clutter-free Inbox. Every morning you’ll get a digest summarizing everything that has been organized the previous day.
We’d love your feedback,
The OtherInbox Team