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.

Orgoo is an all-in-one communications hub for email, instant messaging, video chat, and SMS that we’ve been waiting quite a long time for.

Mike first covered the USC-bred startup in May 2007 before you could get your AIM contacts into Gmail. And then the company “launched” at TechCrunch40 in the fall with a presentation that emphasized the importance of aggregating all your means of communication.

However, the only part of Orgoo actually available to the public is its proprietary group chat product. That’s about to change: Co-founder Sean Rad tells us that he plans to launch Orgoo towards the end of June, with group chat integrated as an important differentiator.

Until then, he is offering 500 private beta invites to our readers. Get yours here while they last, and then be generous: users can invite up to six of their friends (or InviteShare peers).

Also see Zenbe for another example of startup-driven webmail innovation, although one that takes quite a different tact by focusing on advancements around email itself.

Orgoo, the long-anticipated, all-in-one, browser-based communications suite that presented at TechCrunch40 last fall, is releasing a new video chat service to the public today. This comes ahead of a general release of its email, IM, and SMS tools, which remain in private beta.

Over the last seven months, Orgoo has been working on building a replacement to the Userplane video chat it has relied on. The new service is entirely browser-based and allows up to four people to chat via video together at a time (with an unlimited number of people who can join via text chat). For now, there will be a cap of 1,000 people who can broadcast simultaneously over Orgoo, although the company will increase that cap daily.

Orgoo is one of the first to provide this capability independently and all within the browser for private chat sessions. Yahoo Live, which we covered recently here, allows for five-person video chats but in a more public-broadcasting type of setting. ooVoo supports up to six people but requires a Windows-only download. Tokbox supports up to six people but only provides text chat when used with Meebo. And MeBeam supports up to 16 people but has a very primitive user interface. Paltalk has been at this the longest, and offers a 10-person video chat via PaltalkScene (a Windows-only download) and PaltalkExpress (a Web-based version in alpha for both Macs and Windows PCs).

When demoing Orgoo’s new service, there were some problems with audio echos and delays. However, I was assured that these issues would be worked out for today’s launch. If Orgoo’s video chat is able to function for several people as smoothly as Skype functions for two, then this will be quite an awesome service. Both businesses and casual users alike will find it very useful for connecting with people over long distances.

Orgoo video chats will soon be embeddable into other sites as well. The company is working with MySpace to provide its users with video chat capabilities while alleviating the obvious concerns about child predators.

Another cool feature is the ability to initiate one-on-one chats from within group chats. You can just select the person you want to chat directly with, and you’ll enter a dialogue only with them. Both group and one-on-one chats can be viewed fullscreen as well.

Session five as follows, including our live notes. Commentary by Mark Hendrickson and Duncan Riley. 

Xobni

Xobni products aim to improve the way users organize, search and navigate their email. Xobni creates an information profile for each person a user communicates with, and provides historical information that is relevant to what users are working on. Xobni displays contact information, threaded conversations, attachments, related people, email usage statistics, and information from the web.

Xobni creates a profile of all the interactions you have with your contacts. It appears to be a plugin for your email client – sits on the right-hand side of the client as you browse your email. Gives context to each message that you view; you can browse your messaging history with people, see their portrait, look at connected people (social networking), import calendar openings into email text, search your email by people and keywords. Xobni automatically extracts phone and email contacts from email messages.

You can also view upcoming appointments, to-do items, and a “stay in touch” area (a list of people who used to email you but haven’t in awhile – the “ex-girlfriend” feature).

Currently available for Microsoft Outlook, others soon.

Main points: view threaded conversations, find attachments, use email’s social network, and search email and people.

Several email accounts will be supported in 2008.

Orgoo

Orgoo offers a web based “personal communications cockpit” that is a one stop site for email accounts, IM accounts, video chat, video mail, SMS and voice. Orgoo is free, requires no downloads, and can be accessed from any web browser or mobile phone.

Starts by asking how many people have more than one email and IM account. In addition to these, we have chat, SMS, etc. Problem: no way to access and organize all these conversations in one location.

With Orgoo, you get all your email, IM, chat, and SMS more integrated into single location available through any web browser or mobile device.

You can send video to any of your email contacts, send messages from any of your email accounts, send IM messages in the same work area, hold a video chat session (public or private). You can also share files with each other and invite people into chat sessions using IM or email.

Aggregate all of your IM accounts into one (like Meebo apparently). You can take IM conversations and drop them into emails easily to continue conversations there. IM conversations can also be saved in folders and subfolders for archival purposes.

Search all your conversations, across all different types of conversations (email, IM, etc.)

All browsers supported, soon all mobile devices as well as a download. To launch in Q4 2007.

App2you

App2you is a custom web application creator that lets users create web apps without doing database coding or designing. All the app creators have to do is sketch their pages from scratch or by choosing a template from app2you’s gallery and customize it. Once the pages have been outlined app2you creates a hosted, database-driven web app.

app2you allows anyone to build a custom web application without any need for knowledge of code or programming. Goes beyond spreadsheets and database tables; available to everyone who can use Excel. Comes out of UCSD labs and their research.

Demo: building application that could theoretically be used to select TC40 presenting companies. Dragging and dropping types of fields into a custom form, changing their attributes. Can make forms you make to only people who log in or not (prevents duplicate submissions). You can list external reviewers who have access to the submissions to a form, or only a subset of these submissions. These external reviewers can leave comments about the form submissions.

app2you recommends fields to drop into the form when you’re building it. You can try app2you yourself on app2you.com. For free for hobbyist and interest groups, amenable to non-profits, too.

Mint

Mint is a personal finance application that lets users track and monitor their financial information in one place without the need of routine maintenance or accounting knowledge. Mint tracks bank, credit union and credit card transactions and alerts users to upcoming bills, low balances or unusual spending.

Aaron Patzer (sp?) founder of Mint.com – talking to us about our money. Today, going to show us “revolutionary” way for us to organize our finances and save money on the way. Site will be available in about an hour, completely free and anonymous.

He’s taking us through a demo of the product now. Mint links with mid-level data security with over 3,500 banks, unions, credit cards. He’s adding his accounts live to Mint through the website. Just entering in the required info for each and hitting “login”. The system establishes a connection with the appropriate bank and brings in information from each. You can view how much money you have overall, how much you owe. If your balances dip too low, Mint send you an alert.

Mint will also send you bill reminders and notifications when your spending habits change significantly (begin spending too much money on restaurants, for example).

You can view how much you spend on shopping, dining, business services, travel, bills and utilities, etc. You can dive into a particular category and see how much you spend on groceries vs. restaurants, etc. All of the info is organized automatically. You can also view purchases from particular vendors (eg Amazon).

Mint will recommend ways to save money, personalized recommendations. It will give you a bank account suggestion with more interest, or a credit card that could be better for you given your spending habits. If you travel, it’ll find the right miles card for you, etc.

If there is a promotion from a company you pay bills to (Vonage, eg), it will let you know about this promotion so you can take advantage of it. Advertisements make you money in Mint by suggesting ways to save your money.

Mobile access available.

Kerpoof

Kerpoof is aiming to become a leading destination site for children through a suite of activities that are enriching as well as entertaining. On Kerpoof, kids can create art, stories, and animated movies using a simple 3D interface, and when done, can save it to their gallery, share it with others, and vote on their favorites.

Krista Marks, CEO for Kerpoof presenting. Aims to change the way kids interact with the computer. Most of what kids do today is mindless, a waste of time – Kerpoof wants to change this.

Goal: to be a site where fun is not separate from learning, but integral to it. Kids can create art through the site, write their own stories, create their own movies.

Parents are no longer buying software for their kids with the explosion of broadband – they are turning to websites for them. Neopets and Club Penguin are very popular, but are not as educational as they could be. At the same time, CS majors are plummeting. Bizworld saw this trend and came to Kerpoof to create software to educate children using the web.

Easy tool for kids to make their own picture scenes – cool effects when you add particular elements to the scene (add a moon and it becomes night, etc.). You can share your pictures with friends.

To make a movie, pick a scene then a backdrop. CEO claiming the movie creator teaches kids object oriented programming. You put objects in a scene and then make the objects do things (objects and methods). Looks like a basic Flash applet creator. Still, looks impressive. You can add music to the background. You can add multiple scenes to an entire movie.

If you want to add interactivity to a movie, you can have prompts at different points in the movie that change how the movie proceeds (makes it more like a game created by kids).

Kerpoof is live and freely available now.

Expert Panel

Esther Dyson asked about which one she would fund on the spot. She answers Xobni. Her problems though: asks about Eudora, or at least Gmail. (doesnt like outlook). Esther also says she would use Mint, despite being an investor in Wasabi.

Guy Kawasaki asked about which ones impressed him. He says he would meet with Kerpoof (he’s a father of 4). He would also use Xobni but calls it a dumb ass name (ouch).

Roelof thinks Mint has executed the product very well. He is also impressed with Xobni, but he worries about dependence on client. Brings up Plaxo as better in terms of its freedom from client. Xobni defends the company’s way about doing things by saying consumers don’t want to change their account habits.

Michael asked which companies he thinks will be acquired or exist as a standalone company in 5 years. He answers a “different question”. Says he likes all of the companies in this session. Says Mint was really well-done. Kerpoof CEO explains how she wants every third grade teacher to use Kerpoof to teach technical fluency. Esther a bit critical about how Kerpoof doesn’t have objects that interact with each other. Guy says Kerpoof shouldn’t put “programming” word in presentation; calls Kerpoof edutainment (a bit critical overall). Esther and Guy developing quite the rapport.

Asked about their business models:

Mint: lead generation
Kerpoof: subscriber fees
Xobni: vertical solutions
Orgoo (?): ads, premium services

Roelof asks about Kerpoof’s sharing capabilities; sees Kerpoof as a non-social service for the most part, wonders whether it should be more social. Guy says he’s okay with having it non-social (keeps things safer for kids).

Mint rep talks about Cake Financial, says they are about investments whereas Mint is about private finances. Minimal social aspect to Mint. Comment from the crowd saying that Mint has come at a time when technology is more right now then it would have been five, ten years ago.

Mike brings up SalesForce’s new Force release – suggests that Force might crush a lot of the companies at TC40 who are attempting to solve the same problems. app2you rep says they are not worried about Force because SalesForce’s product still requires a higher level of expertise and app2you is trying to make it more dead simple. Calacanis mentions how people problematically use Excel for workflow, they could use app2you more effectively instead.

Roelof mentions how it is hard to run a tools-based business. Make or break for these companies are not features but marketing and advertising – wants to hear more about this from app2you. Esther suggests along with Roelof that both Mint and app2you might confuse users or, in Mint’s case, not know about many business that may charge your accounts — might be too much magic involved that could ultimately fall through.

Guy wonders whether Mint should emphasis the saving money or the organizing finances aspect of Mint. A bit of disagreement over which is more important. Calacanis mentions that many less well-to-do people than those in the crowd will be drawn towards the saving money aspect of Mint.

The new Yahoo Mail interface went into public beta in September 2006, although Yahoo was testing it long before that. Tonight Yahoo takes the “beta” label off of the product and makes it the default interface for all new Yahoo mail accounts.

Yahoo mail already has an integrated RSS reader and instant messaging. They also recently announced unlimited storage for all mail users.

They are also releasing a few new features.

Shortcuts: Mail now has a number of intelligent shortcuts. Things like addresses, places, dates, contact information, etc. are underlined with blue dots. Click on the link and see a mashup with maps (for addresses), travel guides (for places), calendar (for dates), etc. New services are being added regularly.

SMS/Text Messaging: Yahoo wants you to use their mail application whenever you contact your friends, however you contact them. In addition to emailing or instant messaging clients, you can now send them a text message from the mail interface. Their responses also come in directly to Yahoo Mail. It currently works for U.S., India, Philippines and Canadian mobile numbers.

Is Yahoo Mail a better webmail application than GMail? In our comparisons GMail always comes out on top, although the main reason is tagging of messages and the fact that GMail gives free forwarding and POP access to the account. Yahoo still charges $20/year for forwarding or POP access. For users who still like their desktop mail clients, POP access is an important feature. Yahoo says they are considering making it a free option, but they have a lot of paying mail customers. If they make too many features free, they jeopardize that revenue stream. Offering unlimited free storage really pushed the limits, so I don’t expect them to move more features from paid to free any time soon.

The new interface is the final realization of Yahoo’s 2004 acquisition of Ajax pioneer Oddpost. The new mail product is based largely on ideas first launched by Oddpost in 2002.

Startups aren’t just sitting around as the big guys upgrade their webmail apps, though. Our favorite product in this space is Orgoo, which launches this fall and lets users pull in mail and IM accounts from any number of providers. Foldera is another promising product in this space (I was previously on their board of directors, but I do not own any stock in the company).

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.