Carley may just look like any other Supermom with 2 kids and a dog on the outside, but she’s so much more than that. She’s also the Founder of 1. A weekly how-to video that features technology to simplify your busy life.2. The happy dance you do when tech actually works for you.

The Digitwirl weekly web show features quick, how-to, videos that show you most practical gadgets, useful websites and clever apps to simplify your hectic life, and then teach you how to use them. Each week, we teach you ways to save money, time, and a few gray hairs. This week Digitwirl shows you how Organizer can help tame your out of control Inbox.  

Here are OtherInbox we are always looking at ways to make your email life even easier. With the latest update we have introduced a new tab in Organizer for our Yahoo! users called the Dashboard.

Like the Daily Digest the Dashboard groups your emails into categories, like Offers, Shipping Notices,  Social Updates and Travel etc.

Looking for a special offer? Need to find that confirmation code in a hurry? Keeping up with your busy social life? then the Dashboard is your new best friend! The Dashboard also has “Quick click” links, which take you directly into the action without having to open the email first. Got a friend request? Just click on “Accept” from the dashboard to jump directly to Facebook.

To take a look at your own email Dashboard just click on Automatic Organizer in the list of applications inside Yahoo! mail.

Don’t be shy about letting us know what you think or what else we can do to improve your Organizer experience. Simply drop us an email at help@otherinbox.com, tweet us on Twitter or post up on Facebook!

About a month ago we launch our new Unsubscriber product for Yahoo! mail. The easiest way to unsubscribe from those pesky newsletters and promotional emails, by just moving them into the Unsubscribe folder. No user names or passwords to remember, just peace of mind and a cleaner Inbox. It has been a huge success with over 550k emails being moved into the Unsubscribe folder everyday. The majority of the feedback that we’ve received is praise for the application along with some suggestions on how to improve it. The most common being that emails in the Unsubscribe folder should not be counted as unread. Seems you don’t like to be reminded that those emails ever existed! So now, if Unsubscriber moves an email out of your way, it will mark it as “read” as well. Your Unread count will no longer include emails moved by Unsubscriber. This only affects new emails that are processed, so if your Unsubscribe folder has unread emails in it and you want to clean it up, just follow these simple steps; 1. Open the folder list, by clicking on the triangle next to the word folder. 2. Click on the Unsubscribe folder. 3. Select all the emails in the folder. 4. From the actions menu select “Mark as Read”. Note that any unread emails that you manually move into the unsubscribe folder will not automatically marked as read. Don’t be shy about letting us know what else we can do to improve your Unsubscriber experience. Simply drop us an email at help@otherinbox.com, tweet us on Twitter or post up on Facebook!

Last month, to celebrate our 1 millionth signup, we asked you about your email IQ or Inbox Quotient. We asked the question “Are you a Hoarder, a Shopper, a Socialite, or a Pro?” We have to say we were a bit surprised by the results!

51% of the respondents said they were email hoarders. Hoarders hold on to everything and rarely delete anything outta their inbox. They have little reason to really. Webmail products such as Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL and Hotmail keep adding storage so we have been conditioned to think that we should never delete anything. In the new consumer cloud, there is more than enough space for all those things you might have to go back and dig out of your inbox. Why do hoarders have a hard time getting rid of emails? Here’s 5 things that might be driving our collective non action. 5- Cluelessness- Some peeps have no idea what is going on in their inbox. They just know they have a lot of email! 4- Reference- Sometimes you gotta go back and check the tape. 3- Phone numbers and addresses – What was that phone number again? 2- Attachments- That photo of your cute nephew on the pony? He can’t ride that pony anymore. 1- Laziness- We got all the hard drive space in the world, right? Right? Whatever reason you have for holding on to email, we got your back with Organizer! Organizer is perfect for making sense of those less-than-important messages you get by automatically organizing them into folders and leaving space in your inbox for all the other stuff you probably won’t get around to deleting or archiving anytime soon. =)      

After a call on Father’s Day, I planned to set up Organizer for my Dad. With 15,000 plus emails in his inbox, he had been pretty close to email overload for quite some time! Dad’s Gmail is mainly for his work as an attorney, so while Organizer did not automatically create folders for all the court notifications and seminar updates that usually flood his inbox, we were able to easily create the custom folders he needed!

So we set up two new folders for his countless ACDLA and Alacourt emails. In Gmail, under “manage labels” we created a new label – OIB ACDLA and OIB Alacourt. I was sure to nest it under the OIB folder so Dad’s sidebar stays nice and neat! Then we took a look at all the fluff. You know, the stuff my dad doesn’t care about but for some reason he just ignores when it comes in. Yep, it was time for the OIB Unsubscribe folder!

We unsubscribed my Dad from a newsletter he’s had in his inbox since 2007. He couldn’t believe it was so easy to get rid of. Now he can safely and easily unsubscribe from stuff anytime! So we started with 15,000 emails in Dad’s inbox…  After Organizer? 200! My Dad is very very pleased! And with his email straightened out, Mom is happy too – especially since Dad won’t be asking her “did you delete that email?” Mom is an highly organized individual. Dad?  Well, not so much… but now at least his gmail account can be!

My Father is the smartest man I know.  He’s completely self taught on  modern technology. So when he has questions, I have to give him a hall pass on all the crazy, around about ways he uses his applications and the way he finds and interacts with things on the internet. So if there was ever a person who needed Organizer, it is my Dad.  He loves to shop online – Ebay, Charity Buzz, Amazon are all in his inbox. He follows all the sports and news blogs and contributes regularly so they are all in his inbox too! To say that his inbox is overflowing would be an understatement. My pop pushes the limits on being a email hoarder. In fact, I think they would have to come up with a new name for him : Tyranna-Hoardus Rex! Seriously, I had to set up an email account for my mom on her phone because she could never find her emails in my dad’s inbox. For some crazy (and sweet reason) they had been sharing an email address. I guess they still share everything! =)

So this Father’s Day, while I am very sad that I will not be able to be with him, I will be giving him some quality father-daughter phone time. I’ll surely take a minute to help him set up Organizer on his Gmail to ease the flow of newsletters, notifications, reviews, coupons, receipts, and who knows what else! How about you? Think your dad could use something like Organizer? I bet he could!

Last week OtherInbox Organizer surpassed 1 million signups! In light of such a milestone we want to share some of the things we have learned about people and email. We have compiled a few ideas about our users’ IQ or Inbox Quotient! It’s not a number and it’s not scientific but it is an interesting way to think about your email habits and how you might improve them.. with Organizer! =) How quickly do you go through your inbox? Or are you constantly at Inbox Zero? If you maintain forwarders, filters, labels and signatures you are likely what we call an email PRO!

You Pros have it all figured out. You run filters and maintain folders and labels on your multiple inboxes so you can deal with the barrage of email you get on your own terms. But we think that even seasoned professionals can use a helping hand now and then! Organizer is like a built in automatic, administrative super assistant that helps Pros be even more… Pro. Incoming emails, receipts, coupons and shipping notices are automatically organized and you are updated in a great looking dashboard style layout we call the Daily Digest.

Wouldn’t you like an admin like that? Organizer is ready! So are you ready to move up to the next level of Pro? Tweet us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and tell us! In fact, like us, follow us or try us all throughout the month of June and you’ll be automatically entered to win an iPad 2! Good luck.    

Everyday, we read a LOT of industry press. Our RSS feed is a nerdy Neapolitan mix of QR codes, Techcrunch/ Mashable, app reviews, white papers and the like. Every now and then, some hypewriter will resurface the ol’ “Email is dead” story and we all get a ‘lil chuckle but this week… this week is different. This week, Email is alive and well! This week Yahoo! announced the latest updates to their 284 million strong webmail product with our very own Organizer among the list of features! In Yahoo! Organizer is known as Automatic Organizer.

And what great timing! In about 10 days or so we will have surpassed our 1 millionth sign-up and don’t see any slow down in sight. People dig having their inbox organized, prioritized and summarized! Why upgrade webmail? Have you ever wondered why Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft’s Hotmail would continue to add services and updates to the webmail format while folks claim the end is nigh? The fact of the matter is, email is a great entry point for content and a lead in for other service offerings. Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft Hotmail and, of course AOL, all benefit from having millions of people pass through their portals on the way to their messages. Need proof? This April, Yahoo! Blogs delivered 506 MILLION page views. That’s more than any other blogging network including Huffington Post, Gawker, Word Press and Blogger. Huge! Try out the new Yahoo! Mail! So Yahoo users rejoice! Upgrade today, try it on and find your next email Nirvana! Our money’s on that it will include some automation…. Like Organizer!

Looking for a great way to track your online purchases? Look no further than your own Daily Digest! Yep, our Organizer Daily Digest, alongside coupons, special offers and shipping notices, now highlights your electronic receipts! NOTE – Below, you see my iTunes receipt for the new Dangermouse and Daniele Luppi album, “Rome.” Highly recommended! =)

TIP- Quickly scan your Digest subject lines for the word “receipt” to find your highlighted receipts. We are certain Digest fans will dig the new feature and use it to keep track of their online purchases. With your Daily Digest you can track a purchase from the point of sale to the actual ship notice. Pretty sweet! What else do you want to see in your Digest?Tell us on Facebook, tweet at us on Twitter or send us a good ol’ email, help@otherinbox.com.

So, I gotta tell you more about my Daily Digest! Call it an update, a cheat sheet, a debriefing… I call it a busy girl’s best friend! I just got back from Jazzfest in NOLA, catching amazing music and eating as much Cajun/Creole food as I possibly could w/o exploding! I simply did not have time to read all of my email so being able to quickly skim the Digest was awesome!

With my Daily Digest, I don’t always need to open all my mail…. at least not right away. Think about it, new friends and followers, new invites to cool events, newsletters and all the other stuff I sign up for are set up in one nice package. I like to look at it like a daily mini magazine; one that knows all about me and sometimes offers great deals too! Yep, the Digest has great deals now too! Last week we ran a couple of Mother’s Day specials that were uber cool.

My mom got a lil’ something from Amazon and I didn’t have to pay for shipping? Thanks Daily Digest!  

Wow! Mother’s Day is this weekend already!? A recent article in Forbes confirms we’ll all be looking through the interwebs this week looking for that perfect something for Mom! Some spending more than others….

So, while moms are totally worth FULL retail, sites such as Groupon, Living Social, Buy With Me and many, many others can help stretch your dollar. Now, Organizer is helping to bring the best deals right up top, front and center in your Daily Digest!

NOTE- Your mom might like Quizno’s but try just a bit harder…
If you are new here, every day OIB makes sure our Organizer users are kept up to date with their email inbox via our very helpful Daily Digest! These lucky-smart people use the Digest everyday to check in with their less than important messages; hacking their own email to do what they want to better fit their lifestyle. Late last year, we started including ads within the digest and were glad to see people clicking on them, finding the things they needed and wanted! Now, we are excited to offer some of the very best deals online via our “promoted offers”! Promoted offers will be set up right on top (as a coupon) and have a discrete “promoted” label so you know they were brought to you by us here at OtherInbox HQ.

How do we choose the promoted offers? We simply curate the BEST we can find on the web. A daily deal, a one time offer, the buy-one-get-one-frees of the web you always hear about but can never seem to get in on. If it is blowing up on twitter, facebook deals, a group buying site or even a big box, brick-n-mortar we will corral it and serve it to you via your Daily Digest! With Organizer, you get a more manageable inbox AND you save money?! Now, won’t Mom be proud? =)

Here at OtherInbox HQ we have been watching the media response to the Epsilon data breach and it reminds us of a primer we wrote a while back about the many ways SPAM can find its way to you. (Dunno bout you but the first time I saw a Viagra email in my inbox, I thought an ex was playing a cruel joke on me…) We see about 5 ways that spammers get their spammy clutches on our email addys. 1- We are mislead. We give our email address to a website and they send us email we did not expect. -This happens a lot and it is often our own fault. By not reading the fine print, we can find ourselves signing up for a slew of other senders along with the things we actually do want to receive. Watch for pre-checked boxes and reverse opt ins too. If the tactic works, marketers will use em. 2- We are betrayed. We give our email address to a website and they sell it to other websites. -Lead generation, co-registration, data append.. whatever the term and whatever the method, the selling and buying of personal information is a very lucrative industry! When we are told about it up front, it can be quite helpful if the shared sites are getting us to info we need or want but it does not always happen that way! Not sure about the site you are about to share your info with? Try OIB.ME,  a FREE user curated resource we set up so you can review and share info about web marketers email practices. We see it all at OIB.ME …. so before you sign up for an online newsletter or notification, check out what other folks have to say about that sender!

3- We are the spoils of war. We give our email address to a website and it gets hacked. As we said above, the market for personal information is very hot! So sometimes people take the info against our will. This is what happened to Epsilon. This can be tracked if the hacked organization is upfront about it and does a good job of notifying affected consumers. Unfortunately, the data can also be “sneakernetted” by an employee with little to no way of knowing how it got breached. Once in a previous job, I was blatantly asked if I would be willing to “personally sell” a portion of SXSW’s music mailing list. Ummm, no. 4-We are unlucky.  Someone’s computer gets a virus and we are in their address book. This is one of the worst and is pretty difficult to track down! A lot of viral mechanisms are set to do exactly the following; Virus enters your computer. Virus finds address book. Virus sends out a tremendous number of spam messages from your computer which is now a host machine. You can try to remove the virus but your computer is now part of a network of spam bots. You can unplug it but the spam bots might then try to use your own body for energy….Yep kinda like “The Matrix.” 5- We are innocent bystanders. We post our email address on a website somewhere and spammers “harvested” it off the web. Harvesting email addys off of the internet is quite a chore! (I’ve done it with a simple Apple Automator script) It is impossible to track down since it is really a low res operation but there is a solution. Don’t put your email addy online. If you do, at least make sure it is not your primary email address. Try this-  Google your email address. Wowzers huh? Fix it with a catch all or a pseudo email addy! Done. So sure, spam is an ongoing problem… but we are not completely powerless even when there are breaches. So why all the hubbub? Likely because we are already on the edge of our seats… waiting for some sort of data apocalypse. And for some, maybe it has already come! If you live in Texas (like we do) you should know the state records have been compromised! That. Is. Scary. But it brings about a great question- Who is our info safe with if a state agency cannot keep it under control? Let us know about your experience with spammy email! Did you get any funky emails after Epsilon? Or even better, add a review on OIB.ME so others can know we took one for the team, together! Twitter – Facebook- Email – *Ping us!    

Hello again!  I’ve been having fun the last couple weeks playing with my OIB folders to make them do exactly what I want them to do, which is help keep me on top of the things I want to see and do! So, now it’s festival season and the next one in the lineup for me is the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival!  Which means out with the old (SXSW) and in with the new (Jazzfest).

So how do I enable my inbox to keep me up to speed with my next adventure? Well, we already looked at how keeping custom folders helps me stay on top of certain messages. Organizer is a lot easier than manually setting up filters in Gmail. AHEM- Don’t get me wrong, I can set up filters just fine, Organizer just makes it so easy! =) But if setting up folders helps you maintain where your messages go, the Unsubscribe Folder helps you maintain that they stay away when you do not need them anymore! I simply move the SXSW newsletters I no longer want to receive into the Unsubscribe Folder and ta-da! Gone. I don’t think about them again, for it has gone far, far away from my inbox, making room for other things….. Like Jazzfest! So how do I know I’ve been unsubbed? Well, on April 9th I put some of my SXSW newsletters in the Unsubscribe Folder and on April 11th I received a notification that I had been unsubscribed.  How’s that for a quick turn around? So bye-bye Filter Magazine. I won’t need you again until next year.  Farewell Fader Fort, it was awesome while it lasted.  Hello Jazzfest and SuperflyPresents! I’ll see you all in my entertainment folder, soon! Till next time, Ally.    

We know that you all love the OIB Unsubscribe Folder for its simplicity and ease of use…. And what’s not to love? It’s super simple. If you can drag n drop or label an email, you’re done! It’s a major time and effort saver! In January we calculated that we save our users over 43 days every WEEK! (feel free to check our math!) The emails are not just hidden, we actually work in the background to get you removed from that list! Yeah, we are mighty proud of the Unsubscribe Folder. But some of you asked if it was possible to not send out  a confirmation email every time you drop an email into the folder. So… DRUMROLL PLEEZ ….NOW you can control that! On the application settings page scroll down to the Notifications section and now you can opt in/out of getting the unsubscribe confirmation emails. See below-

Simple as that, you ask, we listen. OtherInbox’s Unsubscribe Folder! Because you might want the Dave Matthews’s Grilled Cheese Recipe Database Newsletter for a little while but, after the tour, you might like to be able to unsubscribe as if it never happened. =) What do you think about the mighty, mighty Unsubscribe Folder? Unsubbed from anything interesting lately? Chime in, any number of ways…

  Hi there email fans!  I’m Ally, OtherInbox’s newest marketing intern with an inside look at how I got to have such an organized Gmail inbox! Even in the midst of a crazy event like SXSW, I was able to get my sacred Gmail account in tip top shape. For those of you who have never experienced Austin during SXSW, peeps from all corners of the world come to experience the free food, free beverages, free music, and all kinds of characters on every corner!

Every year I go gaga for the Music part of the festival, trying to catch as many acts as possible. Recently, I started working for the Film Festival (I met Billy Bob Thornton!) but this was my first experience with Interactive…. And what an intro! OtherInbox was involved with two fantabulous Interactive parties – The ATX Startup Crawl, a perfect way for me to become acquainted with other local startups.  Then there was Ignite SXSW, with speakers like Guy Kawasaki and attendees like Michael Dell (who I convinced to take a photo with us and he was super nice about it!).

SXSW! There’s a party every minute. It’s a wonderful time and easily my favorite time of the year.  So, how’s a girl to keep organized with so many rockin’ events going on? With texts, tweets and emails flooding in to give me the who, what and where on parties, films and bands almost nonstop, what was I supposed to do? Lucky me, I found the answer right here in the office! Organizer for Gmail! In past years I used my “junk” hotmail address for these types of things. I used to sort through newsletters, correspondences and Facebook notifications just to find what I needed. Now, thanks to Organizer getting my Gmail inbox straight, all my party RSVPs went into a folder (OIB/SXSW!).  Plus, during SX all the badges I unlocked and new friend notifications went into my Social Networking folder. I didn’t have to search!

Actually, the only thing in my main inbox was the stuff I wanted there – real correspondence from people…. mostly asking me where the party was at! It’s only been 3 weeks and while I was never into organizing I can’t live without Organizer doing all the dirty work!Hmmm. Now that all the fun of SXSW is over, the Unsubscribe Folder is looking totally enticing. More soon- ttyl.

Today the OtherInbox team made their way to the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, California in order to represent at Inbox Love. Inbox Love is a one day event that is all about, drumroll please, EMAIL! Marketers, developers, business and casual email users all have different reasons to attend an event like Inbox Love. Marketers may need better ideas on how to improve their email deliverable rates, gaining new customers and overall strategy. Developers, like the OIB team, are constantly looking to learn about the latest platforms and program and application solutions to make their products work better.

All of your major email players are there. Email service providers (ESP’s) like Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, Aol are all representing as well as ancillary services and add-ons such as Constant Contact, Rapleaf, Mailchimp and Rackspace and many, many more. Even Facebook is there… talking email. All day. Why? Because despite all the hub-bub, email is still very much the best way to reach your customer base cheaply and efficiently and is only second to search marketing as far as online marketing tactics go. Additionally, it’s easy to track and adds an element of loyalty in the opt-in process that you simply don’t get with search! Also, as a copywriter, I personally find the whole art of effective subject lines incredibly fascinating. I mean why do certain things work while others don’t? Writing a great subject line is similar to writing a great tweet or SMS and there is art in what makes people… “click.” Earlier today, Josh Baer talked about expiring email. Expiring email that can self delete based on when its usefulness is past (like coupons or special offers) could be huge in reducing clutter in our inboxes while making marketing messages more likely to get converted into sales or leads. Sounds like the talk went well. Jordan tweeted about it HERE!

Jordan reports that Josh mentions how senders are likely to adopt expiring emails because overall we all want things to be better! I agree. It’s just good sense to not annoy your customer.  Add the fact that it will save users time and effort and it’s a no-brainer! We even made a new friend it seems in @AmyHiggins! See? Proof that conferences can move the needle!
What else would you want your email to do? Shouldn’t coupons tell you when you are about to miss out on a deal? Tell us below, check us on Facebook, tweet about it on Twitter, or send us an email to help@otherinbox.com. Hurry back OIB team, before I drink all this beer…  

Ah, yes, mid-February in Austin. The calm before the storm, right before SXSW. Or, what is better known round these parts as “Crunchtime.” When I think about my email these days I envision a giant swell of bits and bytes, attachments and digital signatures (with some spam floating aimlessly) all vying for my attention. This morning, within about 30 seconds, 14 emails quickly multiplied to 30 and, by the time my phone caught up, the icon read 48.This year, the OtherInbox team is involved in some great events at SXSW next month here in Austin. We are opening up our office high above Sixth Street for a great event called Startup Crawl on March 10th and we are a major sponsor of IgniteSXSW the very next evening, on Friday March 11th. The correspondence generated in planning these types of events can be a real server choker!It’s nothing I cannot handle but it does make me think of how our inboxes tend to rule our life at times. Personally, my mobile beckons constantly, crying out like a baby and I can’t help but pick it up every time it rings or vibrates! Oh, there it goes again…So what to do when, as Mitch Joel describes, email becomes a never-ending game of Tetris, faster and faster until there is no way out? In his article, “The New Rules Of Email” Mitch lays out great rules for better dealing with the inbox melee and I thought I should share them. Control- Mitch raises a great point about our mobile phones. We can turn off the notifications! We can check it on our own time allowing us to stay on task and be more productive. Note- I tried turning off my notifications and it is easier said than done. If I have the phone in my pocket, I cannot help but check. It was better (for me anyhow) to just leave the phone behind! Baby steps I suppose…Automate- Yes! I can totally get on board with this. I automate a lot of my work with great tools like Text Expander and even Skitch. Find yourself writing the same thing over and over? Write it out in the best way possible, save and customize it. Seriously, a huge help. Of course, there is a little application called Organizer too, it helps you automatically label and archive your marketing messages that are not from real people…  It’s like an automated, smart filter but I bet you knew I was going to say that! Don’t reply all or BCC- Oscar Meyer Google! If you have not learned to NEVER reply all, you will undoubtedly have to learn the hard way. But it really is more than just avoiding an embarrassing situation, Mitch also points out how it’s also about saving time and bandwidth. Ask yourself, “does everyone have to see this?” Most times they don’t. Email isn’t everything- While a well crafted email can really lay things out for your intended reader, sometimes a phone call is best or just as good. Mitch also mentions one of my faves, Skype. Or maybe it’s time for a walk across the office for a little visit. Some of these are great alternatives to starting another email string, especially if your previous email is not getting any, uh, traction. =)Write and respond- This oft-overlooked tip is very important for us all. Mitch reminds us that people are not mind readers so you need to tell them what you expect from them. Added someone to the email string? Announce it. Took someone off the string, likewise. Not need for a response? Let peeps know! It is called communication after all and most issues can be solved by our doing a better job of it overall. IE- You have no reason to be upset about your expectations not being met if you did not set them up properly in the first place.TIP- Reengaging with your email may require disengaging first…Mitch mentions something called “email bankruptcy” that is apparently the act of deleting all of your email and hoping that the most important things will find their way back to you. Wow! (Just the thought gives me the shivers!) Instead of deleting it all, I recommend simply stepping away and coming back to it on your own terms. Mitch’s rules are all fantastic ways of doing exactly that.Thanks Mitch Joel for such a great piece on the new rules of email and if you are not reading his fantastic blog, “Six Pixels of Separation” then you are def missing out on some amazing insight on digital marketing and branding.How do you handle the email deluge? Have you ever filed for “email bankrupcy?” Share below, check us on Facebook, tweet about it on Twitter, or send us a reasonable length, double spaced, sent-only-to-us-email at help@otherinbox.com. See you in March!

Most companies have an R&D department. At OtherInbox (OIB) we are in constant R&D mode. Ideas hit the whiteboard fast and they’ll hit the servers pretty regularly after that. We’ve deployed new features to Organizer regularly since I’ve been here and I am in constant awe of the way our development team makes a good product better and better all the time.This week, our CEO and founder Joshua Baer is attending and speaking at the Email Evolution Conference (EEC) in Miami and was in this great article from marketing magazine BtoB about the evolution of a more interactive inbox.The article explores pushing the capabilities of our email inbox, making a once static medium more and more like a website itself. Rich content and media are not to be kept at bay by a user action anymore; That’s right, the “click” may be going away.“There had been no real innovation in email technology since at least 1998,” said Aaron Smith, VP at Responsys. “But today we’re seeing platforms experimenting with enhanced capabilities that make email more attractive and accessible.” Yep, email itself is turning into a platform all its own. AOL’s new Project Phoenix, Yahoo! Mail with their active mail and Gmail with their Google labs are changing the way we interact with email. New technologies like HTML5 (makes auto-play video in the email client a reality), geo-location, social media integration and smart apps like our own product Organizer means we are all constantly pushing that digital envelop to make email smarter, more intuitive and, well, just more awesome overall.

Like I said, ideas hit the whiteboard fast here at OIB and some of the features mentioned in the article have been up there in blue and black, waiting for their turn at your inbox through Organizer. For example, the article talks about expiring emails. That’s on the OIB whiteboard. A time sensitive message or offer should self-delete when the offer is expired or no longer relevant, right? And the Daily Digest should be able to help you keep track of it all! Cool huh?So it’s no wonder Joshua is at ECC in Miami with other direct marketing trendsetters this week discussing the evolution of email. He knows email, period. Seriously, sitting in strategy meetings and business development calls with him requires a quick pen for notes and action items. He keeps us moving quickly to build the best product we possibly can and often times the office feels like Frankenstein’s laboratory as we coax new code into doing that cool new thing we want it to do!In the BtoB article, Joshua says, “The real value of these new features is getting people to interact with email as if they’re directly on a Web page.” And he should know, because here at OtherInbox he is leading us in that direction all the time, piece by piece, building the next big thing in email! What else should your email do? Tell us below, ping us on Facebook, tweet about it on Twitter or send us an old fashioned email at help@otherinbox.com.

We still see folks react strangely to those two pork flavored email messages; Spam and bacn. Both are trying to persuade, inform or sell you something. Both can make checking your email a chore. And of course, both are delicious when served between two pieces of bread with some lettuce. Yum! Wait… scratch that. Let’s break it down into tiny, tasty morsels. SPAM We know a lot about spam. By definition, spam is unsolicited email notifications.  

You did not ask for it, it just shows up like a pushy party crasher, offering you cheap meds, vacation deals and more. Our initial product Defender was somewhat of an invisible shield for spam! It allowed a user multiple email addresses to combat spammers at the point of acquisition. When someone asked for your email, you made one up on the spot and then you could easily keep track of who sold your name. In other words, if you gave your email addy to a restaurant and then noticed an email from them concerning male, ahem, “enhancement”, you knew right away that they had a breach or just flat out sold your name and you could block them easily! Empowering? Yes. Awesome? Totally! But, as often happens in science fiction, the machines got smarter, so we had to follow suit and create something new…. Yep, Organizer but we will come back to that.Gmail, AOL, Yahoo! and other email providers all made spam a top priority! Senders? Blocked. IP addresses? Blacklisted. Criminal keystrokes? Curbed. You may have noticed they were slowed. Perhaps you thought to yourself-“Hey! Whatever happened to that Nigerian Prince? I guess he found help with that bank transfer. Good for him!”Well, don’t be too concerned for him, he is still looking for help. Your email service provider just has him looking elsewhere! (Thanks guys.)The problem with spam is… it’s very profitable. It goes out. People click. Simple as that, supply and demand. So, as I mentioned above, while spam might NOT be dead, it is somewhat under control.So why are people’s inboxes still under barrage? Why do we still need help with the endless flow of messages coming at us? It’s called bacn, and we asked for it!BACNBacn is all those things we sign up for. By definition, bacn is solicited email notifications. And bacn is good for us.  

In a lot of ways, bacn is the most basic transactional currency of the web. It’s the newsletter from your kid’s school, the mortgage notification, the receipt from Zappos, the Twitter updates, the authorization for new accounts and all those things we want and need to make the web work for us. In short, your email notifications are how you know things are working as you dictate. Unlike spam, if your bacn stops… EVENTUALLY YOU WILL NOTICE!So… We like to sign up for things. So, we get a lot of bacn. Deliciously important things, but not as important as the email from your friend, boss, kids, or, you know, things with a pulse! But it all goes to the same place. Your inbox.So what is the best way to handle the flow? Filters of course!Filters allow you to channel your e-mails into designated folders. They gather things according to rules that you set up in advance. But rules can change. ANY number of things may affect your rules-  you’ll add new senders, or senders change their names or the senders change their subject lines, the list goes on. Filters can be a bummer to stay on top of even for the most geekiest of geeks…. Trust me on this one.Organizer is a great way to avoid constantly re-arranging your rules and getting your email to work the way you like. I mean, that’s why we built it as such and why nearly three-quarters of a million people agree!But I digress- This post is about the virtual pork in our inbox. Ahem, so-Let’s review-1. An email from Facebook announcing that the event “Pork Fest 2011″ has been postponed. Spam or bacn? 2. An email from “Pharmaceutical Pam” offering amazing discounts on Cialis. Spam or bacn? 3. A coupon for one dollar off of your favorite brand of bacon from your local supermarket. Spam or bacn? 4. A animated atrocity that promises to reveal other “pork product fetishists” in YOUR area. Spam or bacn? 5. A receipt from your pharmacy for the refill of Cialis that you need to pick up. Spam or bacn? 6. A newsletter from Hormel announcing the winners of the top Spam recipes of 2011. (You are a card carrying Spamaholic) Spam or bacn? If you answered 2 and 4 as spam, you are correct! If on the off chance they actually made it into your inbox, mark ‘em as spam and move on. Lastly, what if you no longer want to receive or feel overwhelmed by the bacn you get?Spam and bacn are different so treat them differently!The rules of engagement for your bacn is simple. If you no longer want your bacn, don’t mark it as spam! Unsubscribe from it.Unsubscribe using their embedded unsubscribe link or using Organizer’s simple  Unsubscribe Folder. When you mark legitimate and solicited emails as spam it can affect the way your email client will handle further emails you DO want. Not to mention, sending spam is a crime, sending someone the notifications they asked for is not! If you want your bacn, but need to get to it later, use filters or let Organizer do the work for you. It’s easy for us and it’s what we do.Seriously, if you have read this far, you are looking for a solution to your perfectly normal bacn hoarding issue. Let Organizer put it in a nice folder until you can come back around to it!I hope this quick primer was helpful in helping you do the right thing next time you go through your inbox. Remember, proper engagement is key but the right tools too can make things much easier and save you time for the words you really want to read.Have you ever clicked on something and instantly regretted it? What’s your favorite cheesy spam line? Share below, on Facebook or tweet us about it!Good luck out there!

Like most of you guys, I love my smartphone. It’s the first and last thing I see everyday. A portal to the world in a tiny screen, a flashlight , a task manager, a time waster and a mobile desktop. Recently, I forgot my iPhone at home and it was like I left my head on the kitchen table. All day I kept reaching for my little, rectangular communication tool. As my co-workers checked their screens, I found myself constantly checking my right palm, pretending to read a widescreen display of my Twitter feed. I’ve heard how people suffer from phantom limb…. I believe it!And why shouldn’t I feel so lost without it? We all spend a ton of our time looking at our little screens. In fact, below is a great chart that shows some interesting data from Nielsen Ratings.In a nutshell, nearly half of our time on our mobile devices is spent interacting with…Drumroll please…. EMAIL.

Yes, email… The messaging system of yesterday, on the devices of today. NOTE- We already knew this but we love seeing our favorite topics visualized. Email lives and we take it everywhere we go! That’s why we’ve recently made sure our time saving Daily Digest looks so pristine on your iPhone. Take a look for yourself!

The font and images have to look great because reading the Daily Digest on your mobile phone is the best way to see in a glance what you’ve got in your email. It’s a great combination!

Scroll down and notice the layout shows you the info you need quickly and in order. Sweet!

So hit your email on your iPhone, we are there, Organizing!One look at the improved Daily Digest on your smart phone and you have saved a little time and effort, giving you even more opportunity to check your Facebook, read Twitter or play “Birds with Friends.” Note- Oops. I meant “Angry Birds” and “Words with Friends”… I always do that!Have a great weekend!