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Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

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31–40 of 44 posts

Re: Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

#31

I use Bitlbee as a unified messaging platform and it works great for me: http://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/news.r.html Obviously it's a little neckbeard-ey but once you get it setup, it's awesome to have AIM, FB, Google Chat, HipChat, Campfire (and any other Jabber account) all in one little box. The only thing it's missing for me is iMessages support. You can also wire up Twitter with it, but I found it too tricky to…

Looks pretty sweet, especially for IM, but doesn't have Email which is important, at least for my usecase. Thanks for sharing it!

Re: Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

#32
A few years back, when web2.0 was the buzz word and RSS-based mashups were all the rage, I believe a few websites tried offering this service.

I don't remember the names of these services now but IIRC, input.io (or something like that) was one of them. The site is dead now - didn't get any traction or funding and shut down. A couple of desktop based clients also happened but fizzled out for the same reasons.

Looks like they were quite ahead of their time. :)

Re: Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

#33
post #31

I use Bitlbee as a unified messaging platform and it works great for me: http://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/news.r.html Obviously it's a little neckbeard-ey but once you get it setup, it's awesome to have AIM, FB, Google Chat, HipChat, Campfire (and any other Jabber account) all in one little box. The only thing it's missing for me is iMessages support. You can also wire up Twitter with it, but I found it too tricky to…

Looks pretty sweet, especially for IM, but doesn't have Email which is important, at least for my usecase. Thanks for sharing it!

Yeah, no email. I use mutt for that :)

Sure thing!

Re: Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

#34

It's a great idea. I had the idea for a unified messaging service, where you would have one client that connected to Google Chat, Facebook Chat, Skype, IM and SMS. When you wanted to talk to someone, it would communicate using the best service. But then I bought a MacBook, and Apple's 'Messages' app does everything I need it to. It's IM when both parties are online, and SMS otherwise. I would also love to see somethi…

That only applies to people who have iOS devices, so it still leaves a whole swatch of people out of the equation.

Re: Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

#35
You need a trendier, buzzier name for it, and perhaps a three-letter acronym. "Inbox of Things" (IoT) should work to gladwellize the minions and get people talking.

But since the chatterati think email is the spawn of old white european males, you need to get rid of "Inbox" all together. Way too emailesque.

Also, we live in the most narcissistic, shallow society ever to have sat idly on this good planet earth, so you need some combination of self, selfie, me, my, myself, you, etc.

Of course, in the selfie-sphere the major issue you will face is appearing "needy" if you respond to pings quickly or respond in a personal, non-selfish way. The proper form of communication in narcissistic society is merely post inane self-expressions in hopes of garnering hip-metrics of reblogs, retweets, likes, upvotes, and other simplistic pings.

So what you really need is an one-way orifice for self-expression that merely reports social metrics back in gamified form. Sort of like a toilet with an AI success coach built in.

The flushing metaphor has its limtis, because "flushing" makes it seem like you don't care about water conservation and other hip non-selfish, selfish things that aid your image-crafting. An "air flush" would solve the water conservation issues. So what sound would an "air flush" make? A swish, a blow? That's it.

So we should call a universal inbox in the selfie age? How about: "Blow Me"

Re: Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

#36
post #34

It's a great idea. I had the idea for a unified messaging service, where you would have one client that connected to Google Chat, Facebook Chat, Skype, IM and SMS. When you wanted to talk to someone, it would communicate using the best service. But then I bought a MacBook, and Apple's 'Messages' app does everything I need it to. It's IM when both parties are online, and SMS otherwise. I would also love to see somethi…

That only applies to people who have iOS devices, so it still leaves a whole swatch of people out of the equation.

Doe you not mean swath or swathe rather than swatch? (Genuinely curious I think this might be a locality thing)

Re: Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

#39
post #19

Once the volume surpasses decent threshold, the UX would be quite difficult to build without some sort of complex grouping or intelligence. The key to a successful unified inbox would be learning what is "important" to each user and customizing the experience accordingly. Otherwise, people would start ignoring busy twitter feeds and focusing on individual emails, IM's, etc, which they could achieve by simply opening…

Agree completely. It would be possible to abstract away all of these services into a common dialect (so that grouping and filtering works across multiple services) and then let the user "build" different UX approaches by allowing one to group and filter different sources into specific view: ex, group tweets and irc messages and have that group display only some UI stuff, group rss/fb posts and have the UI display some other stuff.
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