Comments on: ClearContext’s Stab At Making Email More Manageable

By: ClearContext Corporate Weblog

ClearContext Corporate Weblog — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:52:33 +0000

ClearContext Personal Beta News Roundup…

I don’t know if you noticed, but we had a few things written about our Personal Beta launch in the last few days. Here’s a collection of the latest stories: ClearContext’s Stab at Making Email More Manageable - May 19,…

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:13:24 +0000

I dont think we can ever get to manageable email…….can we?

By: ClearContext Personal steps up the pressure on Xobni–or does it?

ClearContext Personal steps up the pressure on Xobni–or does it? — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:58:56 +0000

[...] ClearContext’s Stab At Making Email More Manageable [...]

By: Deva Hazarika

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:45:20 +0000

Neil,

We’re listening. One of the key design goals of ClearContext Personal is to simplify and lighten the product as much as possible so we can provide immediate value to people with the absolute minimum of complexity. We’ll be using feedback from the Beta Program to identify ways to streamline the product even more. The next couple of updates will simplify a few areas of the product that still require a little bit of manual setup.

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:08:30 +0000

hmm.. i tried Clear Context before. Goal was to keep my inbox healthy and file messages easily.. But i found it pretty heavy with lots complicated functionality. It was fairly intrusive… slowed down Outlook to the point that it actually turned out to be counter productive. Had to uninstall it. Wonder if their new version is any better…!

By: ClearContext goes head-to-head with Xobni for email management | Compaholics.com

Mon, 19 May 2008 18:27:01 +0000

[...] to be another player in town that does something similar called ClearContext as stated in this Tech Crunch article. Although it does not look as intuitive as Xobni, I may give it a whirl to check it [...]

By: Chuck

Chuck — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:38:49 +0000

ClearContext (and therefore Outlook) is the absolute biggest thing I miss since going Mac. In my last role I had to manage anywhere from 750-1000 messages a day and ClearContext helped me keep on top of it with ease. I love the topic assignment and filing mechanisms!

I’ve been able to mimic the color-coded prioritization scheme in Entourage through a whole lot of rules, but it’s not nearly as robust–or automatic!–as ClearContext.

By: Josh Cochrane

Josh Cochrane — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:55:11 +0000

On the subject of innovations in email, our recently launched Email Center Pro service solves a related problem, making it easy for teams and small businesses to manage shared email accounts like info@yourcompany.com.

To learn more or try a free account, go to http://www.emailcenterpro.com.

By: Devin

Devin — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:42:26 +0000

Chalk me up as another long-term ClearContext user that can’t function without it. Fantastic program that gets better with every version. I came onto CC through Michael Linenberger’s Outlook productivity solution.

I don’t use the prioritization or categorization. What’s invaluable to me is the task/calendar/email functionality.

The threading within my inbox, as well as the ability to quickly convert an email to task or appointment and then file the entire email thread to my archive folder (all with easy Alt+X keyboard shortcuts, no mouse required) is invaluable. It also files all my sent mail in my email archive folder instead of sent mail, so I have a full record of all my email communication in one folder, and I use the followup and task delegation features constantly.

I process hundreds of emails a day this way, while tracking and working on dozens of tasks (both my own and tasks I’ve delegated). All while consistently zeroing out my inbox, sometimes multiple times a day.

By: Zebrasink

Zebrasink — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:58:18 +0000

1000s of e-mails / week rather …

By: payam

payam — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:58:13 +0000

I love my Xobni but the fact that it slows down my outlook and makes it crash every few hours, makes me want to try this clearcontext.

By: Zebrasink

Zebrasink — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:57:15 +0000

I’ve purchased and use clearcontext for inbox clean-up, e-mail sorting and filing. I use Xobni for searching for contacts and content. I could not live without either since I’ve adopted them (I’m one of those people who receives 1000s of e-mails / day). I should really explore the deeper functionality of Clearcontext but do not feel, to some degree like the 3rd commenter, that some of this functionality is intuitive. That said, my slow adoption is likely a result of not taking the time to rtfm.

By: steveballmer

steveballmer — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:18:19 +0000

fOR GOODNESS SAKE PEOPLE, JUST USE OUTLOOK!

By: ClearContext, pon orden en Outlook

ClearContext, pon orden en Outlook — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:00:21 +0000

[...] oficial: ClearContext. Visto en TechCrunch. Tags: freeware, Outlook, plugins, ProductividadOtras entradas que te pueden interesar…:Accesos [...]

By: Snowcore

Snowcore — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:21:38 +0000

Thanks for the post. I prefer Xobni - it’s a really powerful thing!

By: Don Dodge

Don Dodge — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:06:45 +0000

Great review. Both ClearContext and Xobni are doing really innovative things with email and social networking around your email contact list.

Email contacts are our natural social (work) network. Xobni has done some interesting work in this area.

Workflow and processing rules for email are crude at this point. ClearContext takes it to a new level. Good stuff!

Don Dodge
http://dondodge.typepad.com/th.....xt-fo.html

By: Email Dashboard

Email Dashboard — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:15:54 +0000

Product launches are tiring!…

OK, I just wrote a long post over on the ClearContext company blog. We just launched a new product that lets us serve a much broader market than we’ve been dealing with so far. Over the next few posts here…

By: Deva Hazarika

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:12:31 +0000

Les (and others),

Thanks so much for your interest. The response has been overwhelming. We’ve already sent out over 200 techcrunch invites, and it’s not even morning yet here in San Francisco. We’re rolling out OL 2007 invites first and will add OL 2003 users in the very near future. We’ll also open up more techcrunch invites starting later today, so keep signing up using the techcrunch code and we’ll do our best to get as many invites out as soon as possible.

By: Les

Les — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:50:23 +0000

I guess the TechCrunch Betas must be used up…..

“Thanks for your interest in the ClearContext Personal Beta. We will be

expanding access to the beta in the coming weeks and will notify you

when an invite is available.”

Oh Well…………..

Above comments on XOBNI seem accurate

By: ClearContext Corporate Weblog

ClearContext Corporate Weblog — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:49:31 +0000

ClearContext Personal Beta Launched to Improve Outlook for Everyone…

All of us at ClearContext are really excited to announce the start of the beta program for ClearContext Personal. This free Outlook add-in helps people organize their email and make their inbox (and email experience) just plain better. At ClearContext,…

By: JX

JX — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:14:31 +0000

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By: Ian Roberts

Ian Roberts — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:30:39 +0000

I’ve used ClearContext for years and find it invaluable for prioritizing and filing my email. I also use it for converting emails to tasks and calendar items - I couldn’t work without it!

I’ve installed Xobni a couple of times, on both occasions I’ve found its interface very pretty, but it is slooooooooow and causes Outlook to crash on occasion. I’m sticking with ClearContext for the foreseeable future!

By: Resu

Resu — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:40:26 +0000

Is there any such plug-in for the Mac and MAIL to improve the management of mails / tasks / projects ?

By: Deva Hazarika

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:38:20 +0000

Dan,

The prioritization algorithms in ClearContext Personal can be as automatic or as directed as you like. They can be limited to simple things like just highlighting emails based on whether or not you’ve exchanged emails with the sender before or they can even be skipped completely.

The broad theme of ClearContext is about treating email differently based on the nature of the message/information. I’ll write a blog post about that in more detail later, but using subject lines and keywords to make email triage easy and streamline group email communications is imo a key part of effective email use - and something I think next-generation email tools need to support in new and innovative ways.

Deva (ClearContext CEO/co-founder)

By: Dan Randow

Dan Randow — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:17:31 +0000

I don’t know that I want algorithms deeming what is important to me. Despite that, I think this would be useful for people who get thousands of emails per week.

For the rest of us, I’d prefer to see emails work better as a group collaboration medium. As an example, email lists with people making good use of subject lines creates email that is easy to triage. If there are good web archives, you can delete most email unread, and use the archive to follow up later, if necessary.