Comments on: Social Software Inbox

By: Kishore Balakrishnan’s Blog » Blog Archive » 1box

Kishore Balakrishnan’s Blog » Blog Archive » 1box — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:16:07 +0000

[...] Triggers: 1. We need a social software inbox 2. Social Software Inbox [...]

By: Jeff Nolan

Jeff Nolan — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:26:14 +0000

it's a problem that has to be solved as well. I think the challenge Microsoft and IBM both have is that the installed base for both Exchange and Notes makes it very difficult to bring about dramatic change to the user experience.without bringing everything old forward with you. This is the same problem that Vista has had to deal with.

By: Lawrence Liu

Lawrence Liu — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:07:42 +0000

"going to be hard for Microsoft and IBM to rethink the inbox" – it's no fun tackling only the easy problems.

By: Jeff Nolan

Jeff Nolan — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:52:27 +0000

yeah that's what I'm saying as well – interoperability. We've basically dumbed down data integration to the cost of text so let's enable a hub like inbox that is a collection point for various messaging systems and has native interaction models (tweeting feels like twitter and FB messages are more like email). My point is that this is what friendfeed appears to be doing, either by design or as a consequence of how people are using it. Lastly, it's going to be hard for Microsoft and IBM to rethink the inbox because they have too many constituencies in their installed base that they have to satisfy.

By: Sam Lawrence

Sam Lawrence — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:40:33 +0000

Boiled down, we're having conversations with people. I'm now talking to you on this blog vs my inbox. The fact other people can read our conversation and participate is powerful. My email in box is filled with conversations, too. That box is filled with closed, addressed conversations. Right now I have to bounce between many things to continue these conversations. Twitter, email on social networks, my corp inbox, my personal inbox, blogs, comments on blogs, voicemails, SMS messages. I have to bebop around from lilly pad to lilly pad to try to keep up with all that stuff and it's a huge time sink. The new inbox will bring together not only what's important and needy across those lily pads but will give me insight as well, a lot of which isn't immediately actionable. I do think it will be hard to build this as a bolted on incremental element to the traditional email inbox. Those boxes already have a lot of crap in them and are pretty messy. I think we need a fresh approach that interjects the old with the new vs the reverse paradaigm of adding the new into the old.

By: Deva Hazarika

Deva Hazarika — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:37:33 +0000

Jeff, I think you're on the right track with "something different, maybe adding semantic tags and/or microformats with handler apps to email messages." That plus integrating the inbox with multiple external sources of content is imo the direction of the next generation of messaging solutions. Check out my blog post on the topic where I go into more detail on the integration and context needed to process information more intelligently – http://www.emaildashboard.com/2008/04/three-next-...