Orgoo - The Web Email/IM Replacement
Michael Arrington
47 comments »
Los Angeles-based Orgoo is a new webmail service that is going to be a popular application for some users. Not only does it emulate Outlook-style desktop mail applications extremely well, it also integrates instant messaging from all of the major IM providers directly into the interface. If you are looking for a service-independent webmail/IM service, you’ll want to check this out.
If you’ve been around long enough to remember Oddpost, which launched in 2002, you’ll see similarities with Orgoo. Like Oddpost, Orgoo is an Ajax webmail service that lets users access their favorite email accounts via POP or IMAP access. Evolution of the Oddpost service stopped, however, in 2004 when it was acquired by Yahoo. Much of the Oddpost engine has now been integrated into Yahoo mail.
The key difference between Orgoo and the major Internet webmail services (Gmail, Yahoo, Live Hotmail, AOL) is that it also integrates instant messaging from all major providers.
The Orgoo interface has both email and instant messaging on the main dashboard (click on image for large view). Sign into AIM, Live Messenger, Gtalk, ICQ, Yahoo) and chat with your contacts (similar to meebo/ebuddy). You can optionally archive all IM conversations and the drop them into the same folders you use for email - a very handy way of keeping information organized. Since IM archives are saved the same way as emails, users can also forward IM conversations as emails.
Both Gmail and Yahoo offer IM integration within their webmail applications, but neither allow users to log into other third party services. Gmail allows Gtalk only, and Yahoo allows Yahoo IM only. Orgoo is service-independent and so users who have email in one place and IM in another (or use multiple services for both) will find this to be a much more useful application.
One thing I really like about Orgoo is their attention to detail. There are a number of examples of this. Users can choose from a number of visual templates and can upload avatars for emails/IM. Any address in an email or IM turns into a link that shows the address in Google Maps via a popup. They allow users to create on the fly chat rooms. And they are allowing users to record quick audio or video files and send them via email. See screen shots below for the maps and video screen shots.
Orgoo will offer users 3 GB of storage for free. The service is currently in private alpha testing with a handful of USC students only but will be expanding in the coming weeks to a larger group.
The two founders, Sean Rad (20) and Shahzad Tiwana (34) are students at USC and brought in a seasoned veteran, Michael Kantor, as CEO. The company has raised a small round of angel financing and has just 11 employees (three in California, eight in Pakistan).
There are a number of competitors out there. In addition to the webmail services mentioned above, a number of services have great service-neutral webmail services (see our coverage of Goowy). Foldera, a public company, is also a direct competitor but is yet to launch (Disclosure: I am currently on the board of directors of Foldera).
Orgoo has created a lot with a very small team and next to no financing to date. Their biggest challenge going forward won’t be getting users, but proving that their service is scalable. One of the most common complaints about webmail is speed - even Gmail and Yahoo, with unlimited resources, have a hard time keeping their services humming. If Orgoo can keep the service flying, they could become very popular very fast.
Any web service that can give people the feel they are using Outlook is something worth looking at. If only for the 3GBs of storage it’s worth a second look, I wonder if it has POP3 and IMAP support.
Steve Spalding
Howtosplitanatom.com
Dang! All beta slots are full!
Do you think you can get them to send out a few more private beta invites.
Looks like a good service, being a freelancer and blogger this might come in handy to have all IM’s in one location.
your last comment about speed is right on. Technologies and interfaces are only going to get better, and become commodity, but speed will turn on or turn off the user base. Consider Twitter, even with simple interface (does anyone else not see the normal twitter interface sometimes, btw?), the slowness could be it’s downfall. Or at least a huge discussion point in strategy and engineering meetings.
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
Keeping Personal Relationships in Check
This looks fantastic.
Already signed up and ready to switch my gmail over.
Yeah, it looks that good.
It’s possible to add your Yahoo, AIM, and MSN contacts into Gtalk, but doing so requires using third party clients to connect your accounts to transports hosted by yet another third party. Way too complicated and geeky for most people to try.
Gtalk has shown that people like using IM and email in the same interface. Adding a multi-protocol web client into the email client is a smart way to go.
I wonder, though, what the long-term plans are. Acquisition isn’t the only way to make a buck, but it’s the most common among web startups. An owner of a big IM network (Google, Yahoo, MS, or AOL) may be turned off by the multiprotocol thing. Connecting to their competitor’s networks without some sort of official sharing agreement is going to tend to scare them off.
I would give it a a try -
- but until it has millions in funding behind it; you are risking them running out of money. -
_ Rb
So why not still give it a try? If they run out of funding, no big deal… especially if you’re using POP.
Looks like a compelling service but issues like connection speed, how does the multi-party IM work and how easy it is to setup accounts need to be tested before any verdict is out. Looks promising though.
I have met with both founders (Sean and Shahzad) and have reviewed the product. I was very impressed with the UI and ease of use. In addition, the IM features are great.
This will be a successful webmail product.
Bandwidth is still cheap and there are a lot of Carriers with products that can help a start-up scale without over-buying and busting their budget. Ethernet loops and collocation is still a buyers market. Bandwidth shouldn’t be a scare for the company or customers as long as they plan for it but not as an after thought. Which begs another question.”Wouldn’t some web 2.0 companies be a good acquisition for Carriers to expand their services outside of just selling pipes or wouldn’t Carriers be good acquisitions for major web companies to better plan their bandwidth costs?”
Jason - it won’t be speed that turns off Twitter
This looks really neat! Shame about the closed doors though
For those saying how centralized IM would be great.. check out Meebo. One cute thing about Meebo is it’s easy to integrate into your NetVibes (or other) page, so you basically get a full-time “most networks” IM client running all the time for free.
I think Kevin Rose is working on something similar to this… can anyone confirm?
Indeed, if they can make a fast and intuitive application (like it looks like from the screens) then this sounds like it could be absolutely amazing.
Oh, I hope they have some kind of Twitter integration as well…that’d be great.
They should be using S3 (Amazon Simple Storage Service) for their backend storage, and maybe ECC (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud) for some of the distributed processing (just an idea).
Interesting but need blackberry integration before would consider something like this for my co.
@Allen Stern
Twitter isn’t going away any time soon.
Twitter is like Digg (except without sucking like Digg), many self proclaimed “intelligent” people were brilliantly forecasting a year ago that Digg was just a passing fad that would go away (how did that prediction work out? hm?).
Twitter represents a micro-publishing revolution that is going to continue to be popular for some time to come… If you don’t like it, great don’t use it, but don’t give us your “brilliant” prediction about the downfall of Twitter.
@Al Ramirez - bandwidth (and all the other resources) is cheap - that’s for sure. But with huge demand it can add up, or as we see in other web services, it can slow things down - Mike states that even the biggest of the big have issues with this.
@Allen - could be that speed isn’t the thing that kills it - today on my browser (FF) I don’t even see the normal layout, which is not uncommon. But give me a break, taking minutes to authenticate??
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
Personal Career Management
can someone please enlighten me about their possible business plan. meebo is a good product and has been around for quite a while without making a buck.
Now theres an app that would work well as an apollo or simiar web connected desktop app!!!!
Sean, congrats.
The product looks really polished and well executed. Best of luck to you and your team.
i dont understand all the praise for orgoo.
- we can integrate all email accounts only when they allow forwarding or POP/IMAP feature
- I prefer gmail interface to outlook
- visual template and avatars?
heavy graphics is the reason I dont like new yahoo.
-what is the big deal about im integration? just open meebo in another window and chat properly instead of in a crunched up 10% width window.
- I think integrated video messaging is the only feature not available in today’s mail clients, but can be easily done.
@Deeter - Most people want a one stop shop for their homepage. A lot of users still don’t use tabs effectively and with multiple browser windows open you might as well run something like pidgin locally.
For those of us who work on many different machines, having an application that is machine agnostic where I can do the same work with the exact same functionality just by going to a webpage is a golden goose. For those people who love outlook and have many different email accounts with imap/pop functionality this will be very useful. The addition of chat means that I sign on to one webpage, check my mail, answer any pressing matters with IM, and then can be on my merry way.
Deeter. huh?
Read the article again. Its not just that they put these services in one place, but email/IM is INTEGRATED so your conversation can be stored with emails, searched (at least that’s what the screenshots show), and forwarded to people. If you look at the screenshots, it shows you can also reply to emails via IM (I guess that works like Gmail does). It seems they also have video conferencing capabilities in their chatrooms (according to venturebeat: http://venturebeat.com/2007/05.....-platform/)
Also, how do you know they don’t allow forwarding/pop/imap?
Until I see the application, I can’t say much. But from this article, I DO understand the praise.
@ Adam Kalsey - I have done the same with gtalk now. All - MSN, Yahoo in gtalk to have it all on the gmail interface (prefer sidebar)
Not sure if it is too complicated but also certainly not a click to do it
Looks pretty, but I’ll stick to GMail.
you can unofficially rig G talk to use jabber gateways
(since its jabber based)
but its difficult for the average user
so you could do the things Orgoo does with GTalk
I don’t like their domain name. What’s with these startups trying to be ‘creative’ with their name and always ending up with a terrible name?!
Add to deadpool.
Looks great. Could be useful for small businesses.
Their logo logo is more than a little derivative of Joost though. The thick outline on a transparent text. Almost the same font. At least their multicolored symbol on the left is in 2D with less saturation..
Their logo is awesome and I like the name. I wonder if it means something? I agree though, a bit similar to joost. Joost is one of my favorite startups, and I think I’m going to add Orgoo to that list. Go Orgoo team! It’s been a while since TC wrote something worth reading… nice job.
Maybe it is just me, but the more I look at the first screenshot, the more it looks remarkably similar to AOL’s new beta webmail app.
Screen of AOL beta webmail (horribly edited some stuff out):
http://img243.imageshack.us/my.....lednu8.jpg
Wow, this is the THING O.o
Why do I want to use meebo anymore…
I really want to get in into orgoo….
please if anyone can help me get in, I would be super greatful.
Nice tool.
Awesome, i’ll throw my money behind this. Definately will make a buck.
This is a highly competitive area. I don’t think any webmail service provider (e.g. hotmail, yahoo, aol, etc) would want to lose users. A lot of the big players rely on their webmail services for their online strategies and marketing. Good luck to Orgoo. It’s great what they’ve created so far.
my social will offer all of this functionality and more into a one stop shop.
Keep an eye out for http://www.mysocial.co.uk
The future of social networking and web communication.
Nice deadpool.
google should do the im integration and stop pushing google talk. They should realize they can’t do everything best.
I like this initiative, sounds like a mixing of meebo and mail… let’s see how it performs!
orgoo - interesting thing to know. I am waiting to begin using it…. Let us see how it performs…and how scalable it is….
Those looking for a robust and enterprise webmail project, see version 2.0 of Claros webmail with bundled instant messaging, RSS feed, contacts and notes. It’s similar to other Ajax based webmails currently in use today, but with full source code so you can host your own service. Screenshots, download information and suppot options (i.e forum, mailing lists etc) can be found in http://www.claros.org
PS: Calendar and tasks support will be added in the near future.
Disclaimer: I work for Claros.
buy my items