Social networks are, first and foremost, vehicles for personal expression and interaction. But for all the wall posts, direct messages and pokes, one means of communication is conspicuously missing: email (Yahoo understands this, if little else). Apart possibly from the phone numbers you keep on your mobile phone, there is no better electronic indication of your social graph than your email address book.
Aside from emailing out notifications to lure users back, however, social networks opt for their own proprietary messaging systems. Unfortunately, these systems are much less powerful than email, and they’re certainly not as ubiquitous. Virtually everyone on the internet has an email account, but only a fraction of the digital populace happens to be part of the same social network as you.
Orgoo, a startup that has built an email-centric web interface for communications (see our coverage from 2007), thinks it can bridge the divide between email and social networking by pulling them together into a unified experience.
They will offer a white label solution to their webmail product marketed specifically to social networks looking to keep users on their sites for even longer periods of time. The result: Gmail and Facebook in one (or Hotmail and Friendster, if you’d prefer).
Orgoo integration into a social network would basically bestow upon that network webmail functionality. Users could send and receive email messages from any POP or IMAP-enabled account just a page away from their friends’ profiles and favorite social apps.
A range of synergies is also possible. When you receive an email from a friend in your network, you could see their current status message or recently added pictures. If the sender isn’t your friend but is part of the social network, you could be presented with an option to add them as a friend or view commonly shared friends.
There’s been talk that email is the true social network, since the people you email most must be the most important to you. That’s rubbish, of course. How are you going to check out that cute girl in class using email? Or share your favorite music and photos with several friends without annoying the hell out of them?
No. Email - no matter how advanced it gets - isn’t going to supplant Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut. But that doesn’t mean the social networks shouldn’t embrace email more tightly. Imagine the page view increases if users began checking their email messages along with their friends’ profiles. And the development cycles that would be saved by social networks that would otherwise need to replicate email functionality with their own messaging systems.
The benefits of integrating something like Orgoo wouldn’t necessarily stop at email. Orgoo would like to white label its instant messaging and video chat capabilities as well. The former would be particularly appealing to networks other than Facebook, which already has on-site instant messaging. None of the networks, however, has really embrace video communication yet.
Despite the potential mutual benefits of Orgoo integration (Orgoo itself would enjoy access to large, well-established user bases), the startup has a tough sell to make. Social networks will only reluctantly put so much of their users’ experience into the hands of a separate company. I imagine we’ll see smaller networks in the long tail implement Orgoo before any of the big players, such as MySpace, which was hypothetically mocked up in the shots accompanying this post.
Check out Zenbe and Xobni for two other attempts to blur the lines between email and social networking.
What I need is this: an open-standard status feed. A basic way to broadcast text to my contacts. Without the paraphernalia of social networking, and without cluttering inboxes.
Basically: RSS integrated into the email client. Open-source Twitter. That would be really useful.
I dislike the ad attached at the end of each email sent from your orgoo.com account. There is no reason for orgoo to add “Get your free orgoo account” as the company’s name is already included in the email address.
Also I don’t like that these new email providers like zenbe and orgoo do not offer users to use their own domain. Gmail, for example, offers this.
Facebook (or MySpace or someone else) should buy Orgoo and just integrate its functions exclusively. Would be a nice USP for the buying social network.
I started using Gears with my MySpace Mail account and I love it. Who needs Orgoo?
Maybe with open source you could simply add them as applications.
http://tekno-world.blogspot.com
@2: Unfortunately, a majority of the older internet users aren’t that intuitive. They need to know that its free and at orgoo.com
This is going toward the right direction. I have always thought it would be really great if Facebook could somehow integrate Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. into its private messaging system.
The main reason why Facebook chat isn’t very successful is because people don’t spend a few min at a time on Facebook, if they could integrate Email into their platform, they could solve the problem. Not to mention, it would be nice to just go to one place and check all my accounts!
couple of apps on facebook allow you to check your mail already apps.facebook.com/fmailclient/ does gmail well and apps.facebook.com/babuki-mail/ does all the other main providers (and they’re partnering using their multi IM solution too)
the reason facebook aren’t so keen to do email is the point of their internal messanging systems is to not be full of spam (though since myspace is full of spam they’ll probably might as well get email spam too)
Totally agree with #7. It would be great to maybe just integrate everything into one massive.. thing. All of our social networks, emails, chats, Flickr account, blogs, feeds, all online ID’s in general.. to be able to check all that from one place would be pretty much amazing.
What I think we need is a meebo.. for all of our online accounts.
@9 try iGoogle
Didn’t think of that, thanks.
@ 10 i second the motion. iGoogle
Nat
http://www.workersinc.com
Fuser does this today. All of your Social Network messaging (MySpace and Facebook) and multiple email accounts in one inbox. Check it out: http://www.fuser.com
@13 - Problem is Fuser doesn’t work well. I have a fuser account and it takes forever to load anything. Even a simple item can take 2 or 3 minutes to load - and it isn’t every once in a while, it’s every time i use it! The other problem with Fuser is interaction - there isn’t any. I can read and reply to email and social network messages, but to send a social message I need to know my friends user id…. and I can’t even view all my friends from within Fuser.
i google is cool, but just a snapshot. I still have to go log-in to all the different accounts to actually interact.
@7 and 9 - I understand there is a stealth startup working on exactly this problem. Truly bringing all our social interactions into one place - just like you are asking about. I will see if I can post more info …
nice to see iGoogle getting mentioned. I live in there more than anywhere else… twitter and friendfeed are close by though. But I have trust issues with orgoo. I have an orgoo account. They have not damaged my trust… but why should I enter all my account details incl. passwords (yeah it’s https). Can I really trust these guys? I’m holding back!
I keep reading daft headlines like “Email is dead!” which is stupid, of course.
I really like where Orgoo are going with this, but I think they ought to be mindful of things like oAuth and maybe work to make their service work more loosely…
Shameless plug and response: Check out http://www.fuser.com.
We offer a destination site that aspires to “just integrate everything into one massive.. thing. All of our social networks, emails, chats, Flickr account, blogs, feeds, all online ID’s in general.. to be able to check all that from one place would be pretty much amazing.”
Today Fuser handles, all email (not just IMAP and POP, but also free webmail accounts like Yahoo), Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. We are in beta and have some rough edges, but we’re working on fixing them. Stay tuned.
We also have an application for Facebook that allows you to see your MySpace messages, and a MySpace application that allows you to see your Facebook applications. Links to these are on our home page.
We’ve thought about creating applications for Facebook and MySpace that allow people to interact with all their email accounts but we’re not convinced the demand it there.
Do folks really think that users want to manage their email inside of a social network?
Does anyone know how to make money out of it? advertisements? but there has to be something better than what we have now.
The Orgoo idea seems pretty interesting, although I don’t think sites like facebook need their users to spend more time browsing through their site. Users spend as much time as possible on it.
Here’s an article written from the Advertising 2.0 conference. Lets see who can get there first.
How about this:
If you ask the user for their login credentials to any site other than yours, you need to go fuck yourself.
I’ve been using the Orgoo beta and am very impressed. It’s an ambitious undertaking but if enough people start demanding email integrated with their SN experience than they’ll be bidding wars for companies like Orgoo (and perhaps Fuser although I haven’t used their service). Seems like in the increasingly competitive social net world offering email in the UX could be a big advantage over someone who doesn’t.
Trillian’s new Astra product, and Meebo could give Orgoo’s IM a run for their money, but email is the killer app. Its the glaring omission from most social networks. Gmail and Yahoo Mail are tough to beat. (Apple’s new Me.com service will put a dint in their market share). But what would really welcome round about now is a really top notch email system perfectly integrated into a MySpace or Facebook or LinkedIn.
@ Frank - How about this, when you post a comment in a public place you try speaking like a grown-up and using your big words?
I appreciate that Fuser is in Beta, but even if the speed weren’t terrible, I still can’t interact with my friends unless they sent me a message…
lets not get too excited about yahoo’s suggestion that email address books and IM chat responders are a de-facto social network. this is sue decker grasping at straws to make y! look relevant when in reality it has completely missed the boat on a segment yahoo should have owned (and could have).
intent matters. i put the guy who sold me home insurance into my y! address book. he is not in my “social network”. if i wanted to hear what he fed his kid for breakfast, i would have tracked him down in fb and signed up for his feed. likewise, your list of contacts in fb is likely not an “address book” to anyone, its a list of people you want to sit near at a party.
@Ian
When one creates an application targeted at “grown-ups” do not ask for personal information that only a child-like mind would be comfortable sharing (no sense of consequences).
Otherwise, said “grown-ups” will use words that offend those with delicate sensibilities (eg. fuck off, fuck you, fuck yourself, etc.).
Does anyone know how to make money out of it? advertisements? but there has to be something better than what we have now.
After setting up an Orgoo account, I take back everything I said. Apologies to anyone I may have offended. I would rather not check my email and social networks side by side.
Nice service. Have they an API?
szti27xour9 pqeo58t4j6hmaqp a6vzb1219gg
What happens if a bug occurs in Myspace and all my friends are able to read all my emails from ALL my accounts? Hell no.
Ok, here is a blog post about a start-up working on just what everyone is talking about here. http://www.gruvie.blogspot.com
The site itself doesn’t have any of the functionality working, but the blog post shows some screenshots.
I think the idea is quite bright.
But I would opt for a more mash-up approach.
I would like to have one website, that would integrate all my email-accounts and SNs and IM on one page… something like gmail with gtalk plus e-mail collector plus SN…
In Germany there is a product called MultiMessenger (www.multimessenger.de), which allows something like that - multi-messaging plus email aggregation plus SM message aggregation.
But currently it’s only available as Windows download and only in german.
Nevertheless, this would be a fair approach which would “detach” the needed function from the original services.
These guys have a big issue of disgruntled employees. check out their company rating at http://www.pingmycompany.com
Would I put my mails in a company that could ‘implode’ any time.
C.K.
http://www.oyco.com is somewhat similar too. I have dabbled a bit for the last few weeks.
Take a closer look at how Orgoo is developing its product, and how the company inside is at:
http://pingmycompany.com/Orgoo-Inc..htm
Orgoo is just a nuisance.
Oh here is an interesting observation.
The number of emails in your mail box is inversely proportional to the quality of service you get at orgoo.
I have roughly 1000 emails in my inbox and am practically locked out of my account. The latest revelation is
ORGOO IS PATHETIC
we are not talking about some fancy link up with myspace or facebook, this is email, this is God damn email the simplest web service out there and it doesnt work at Orgoo.
please donot start ur response with ‘this is a rare case’. although this is the first time I am complaining I have experienced rubbish service since day one.
C.K.