

Rapportive (YC S10) integrates Gmail People Widget, gains features - samstokes
http://mashable.com/2011/06/02/rapportive-gmail-people-widget/

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mdwrigh2
I pondered on how the GMail People Widget would affect Rapportive in the
initial thread about it's announcement, but I think this is the best possible
response to it. Embrace the technology and use it to further your own product.
Kudos Rapport, kudos.

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kno
Well done rapportive, Google should buy you out instead of trying to eat your
lunch.

~~~
ChuckFrank
Hear hear. This space is so small, Google should buy it just to consolidate it
and clean up the available options.

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ChuckFrank
Frustratingly, I couldn't find the actual widget from the blog announcement.
Is it in Labs? Even googling the widget took me to their announcement and not
to the widget. Certainly I'm missing something. Does anyone know where the
gmail people widget is?

~~~
samstokes
It's a built-in feature of Gmail, rather than a Labs feature or an installable
addon - once the gradual rollout reaches your account, it will just appear in
your Gmail sidebar (or, if you're already using Rapportive, in the Rapportive
info).

Google is doing a characteristically excellent job of communicating this to
users.

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riffraff
on the theme of Rapportive: I played today with it to build an HN raplet and I
realized something slightly scary: whenever I installs rapportive, or any
raplet, all of my contacts's email addresses get broadcasted to the builders
of the raplets plainly.

Was this discussed previously on HN, or on some of the Rapportive public
comunications? It seems a moderately bad thing to me, although I have not
pondered the alternatives (hash a-la gravatar for example).

~~~
rahulvohra
This is why we have a big warning when you install a Raplet — you are trusting
the authors of the Raplet to treat your email addresses with respect. This is
why we only list Raplets in the gallery from authors we know and trust.

A hash would work for many use cases, but wouldn't work for adding a contact
to a CRM/Helpdesk/etc.

Access to the plaintext email addresses could be a permission that Raplets ask
for, but this may be unnecessary complication.

~~~
riffraff
true, the warning is there for me whan I install my raplet, but it's not for
when my contacts do, which would be the discomforting bit. As I said, I did
not put much thought on this anyway, and I can see how this is basically "your
friends know your email and can sign you up to a spammy ml" in another form.

