

Between Gmail, Twitter And Now Facebook, There Is No Universal Inbox, Yet. - atularora
http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/21/facebook-messages-is-people/

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hop
A tabbed browser handles this pretty well. I would certainly not want a co-
mingled stream of friends updates mixed with personal and business emails in
one super aggregator. Seems like they are huntinging for a solution to a non-
problem.

I would love to see the end of text messages which cost $15/month ($180/year!)
on AT&T - I try to email as much as possible, but its so convenient for
everyone else.

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notauser
It is a real problem you have if you are a TechCrunch columnist and:

\- Your work consists of tracking hints and leads sent to you via Facebook,
Twitter etc.

\- You sign up for everything to try it out, leading to loads of mail.

\- You hand out business cards like confetti at events, leading to even more
mail.

On the other hand if you work as an office drone at Yet Another Firm, where
the use of non-work email is frowned upon (let alone Facebook) then you
probably have a different set of problems.

I'd say that for a large chunk of the user base the issue is more like "which
messages are worth delivering to my cell phone, so I know I should sneak off
to the bathroom and read them now rather than waiting until my lunch break".

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dsplittgerber
Am I the only one finding no personal need for a universal inbox?

I like the fact that having to login to facebook to read a message makes it
harder to waste your time there. I like that there is no single point of
failure for my e-communication. With each month going by, I worry more about
keeping my personal data from aggregating on a single company's servers.

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chamakits
This is a feature I truly do not desire. Seriously. I like (or rather love)
the division between the Social web (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and the email.
The previous technology to try to cross this (Buzz) wasn't very welcome. I
know its widely different what is being proposed, but I truly I'm not
interesting in any form of intercommunication between the three, and I
truthfully cannot see who would.

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ckcheng
As soon as I get Facebook email, I can unify it all in Thunderbird!

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rlpb
Have we gone full circle? Right now I'd really like a desktop application that
uses each service's API to integrate everything into one interface (IMAP for
Gmail etc). I would still use the web interfaces when not on my main computer,
but as a hacker I'm on my main computer a lot and don't mind having things set
up for extra convenience.

I also feel that web GUIs are still hacky and limited by what Javascript can
do in a window. Desktop applications have no such limitations in UX, and so
works better for integration-type work.

Ubuntu seems to be doing this well, or at least heading in this direction, and
this is great for me.

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modeless
What I want is Google Reader for my gmail, twitter, and facebook. But with the
extra feature of de-duplication, so when my friend tweets and updates facebook
at the same time I only see it once. Is anyone doing this?

~~~
domino
We're doing something similar with <http://summify.com>

~~~
lachyg
Sorry to go off topic, but I couldn't help notice your 'Stories we have
aggregated' seems to increase consistently each second, versus sporadically...
Is this just a fake counter?

~~~
domino
It's interpolated based on the previous days, similar to how Gmail counts
storage size. It's not "fake" because it's pretty close to the real number,
but it's not perfectly accurate either.

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scrrr
Websites should simply send a copy of any message via email to me. When it
happens or bundled at the end of the day. Most of it is crap I don't want to
respond to anyway.

And while they are at it: Let me also answer via email.

The situation we have now with having to log in to answer messages within
Facebook for example is simply backwards. This is one of the main reasons I
hope Facebook will eventually be like Friendster and Myspace - a thing of the
past. Not that I am using it now, I just hope I won't be eventually forced to.

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sandaru1
>> Between Gmail, Twitter, Yammer, Skype and Facebook it seems that hundreds
of people known and unknown are trying to contact you at any given time.

Does anyone actually use Yammer?

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roadnottaken
This is not a problem. If you're careful with your e-mail address, you don't
get any junk-mail. (The simple solution is to have one e-mail address for
online sign-ups and one e-mail address for personal communication.) As for the
other problems, if you don't want to be overwhelmed by
Facebook/Twitter/Socialwhatever, then don't go to them at work. I agree with
_notauser_ who said this is probably only a problem if you're a TechCrunch
columnist...

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extension
Universal inbox is not going to come from competing self-interested
businesses. Their role is to innovate and give us options. The role of the
open source community and the general public is to choose and consolidate,
eventually. In the mean time, we have to live with the complexity that comes
with choice and try not to let any one party get too much control.

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konad
? Lies

Facebook emails me every comment and notification

SMS backup on my Android phone emails me every Tweet (and SMS)

AOLers, aren't they cute.

~~~
scorpion032
Not only does FB email me every message. It sends push notification to my
iTouch, my Android and notified via AJAX, on all open Facebook windows.

You can't miss it, even if you want. Last thing I want is a super aggregator!

AOLers are cute, indeed.

