

Conspire Analyses Email to Be Your Next Networking Tool - pauljm
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/10/forget-linkedin-conspire-taps-email-to-be-your-next-online-networking-tool/

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cscharenberg
I am amazed at how stupid these applications are. I just signed into Conspire
again (tried it a year or more ago) and it sent me an update email like this:
"You are losing touch with [X] and [Y]! Email them now". You mean my mother
and my father-in-law? Both of which I have specifically linked as such in my
Google Contacts? Thanks for that advice.

Same goes with these other services: Rapportive, Nimble, Mingly, Xobni, etc.
They apply superficial statistics and send a daily alert that some person I
exchanged one email with last year should be contacted. How about reminding me
to keep in touch with colleagues from my previous job? Or a colleague leaves
my company...therefore in 2 months send an email saying hello. Those would be
useful reminders.

I predicted everything Conspire was going to send me today: stats on how
quickly I respond to emails, % responded to, message volume. Who cares?? It's
just comfort stats: feels interesting but actually isn't.

I am desperate for a semi-intelligent personal contact management system. Or
at least a dumb one with a really great editing interface. The level of
intelligence in these app is so slow I actually wish it were zero so they
would stay out of my way!

~~~
dandrewsen
The notification email with the stats isn't the product, it's just a feature.
Conspire's real product is their search engine that can find the best person
for introducing you to a contact or organization.

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richthegeek
Isn't this inherently unprivate? There's a big gap between "I have emailed (or
received email from) this person at least once" and "I speak to this person
regularly".

Such a relationship is revealed by this software where you might not want it
to be.

Consider you are speaking to a recruiter who just happens to be your most
reliable connection between one of your contact and the contacts of that
recruiter. In this case, it looks like your relationship will be revealed.

Then again, it seems like LinkedIn has never shied away from being sleazy and
careless with your data so anyone using this will be expecting a lack of care
anyway.

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Xeoncross
1\. Privacy-oriented people like myself will never connect to this service so
they can, ahem, responsibly handle my email.

2\. The recruiters/founders who know me will (because it looks like it will
really help them).

3\. I'm in the system now.

4\. go func() { for { Repeat 2 } } // concurrency so we can continue...

5\. My network is in the system (and tied to me)

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AnonymousRant
Is it really necessary for this service to have the ability to:

"View, manage, and permanently delete your mail in Gmail Create, update, and
delete labels Compose and send new email"

I'm sincerely asking - it's not a rhetorical question. Does Gmail not offer
more granular permissions than this?

Also: the other commenter's point re unexpected privacy leaks is a good one. I
don't think I have any secrets that would be revealed through my
correspondence habits, but I do so much email, I could be wrong. Do I have the
ability to delete my info after I've registered if I don't like the service?

It's an interesting idea, and I'd like to give it a try, but without a little
more assurance that I can trust them with access to my email, it's not worth
the risk.

~~~
alexdevkar
I'm a founder.

Re permissions: We use IMAP to access email data, so there is no granularity.
It's all or nothing. We never move or delete messages and only send messages
with your express permission. (Google offers a Gmail API that has slightly
more granular permissions, but it is not peformant for our use case.)

Re deleting an account: Yes! You can delete your account and all of your data
from our system with a couple of clicks. You can do that from your account
page.

Please ping me with questions. alex@conspire.com.

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dandrewsen
Conspire has become my go-to networking tool. It uses your real working
relationships, so it's much more accurate and useful than LinkedIn. I've used
it to make introductions, and to seek introductions, and it's incredibly
powerful.

~~~
armine
+1. I too have been using Conspire lately, and quite successfully. Great
product.

