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Ask HN: Inbox for everything?

29 points by danaw ↗ HN
I'm curious if anyone out there knows of a tool or service that can serve as a unified inbox for email, Facebook messages, Twitter mentions/DMs, text messages, IM, etc?

I've always wanted something like this but I'm not sure if the problem just applies to me or if someone else has solved this problem already.

43 comments

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porter
Browser tabs?
danaw
The idea would be to have something with a bit more sophistication. Associating contacts on multiple platforms into one thread. Reply to people on multiple platforms from one location. Having a conversation trail with each person on multiple media.
DorianMarie
I never saw it but I think that would be a really good idea, I would love to "archive", "mute" and my facebook wall, twitter, etc... If that could work as GMail that would be perfect.

I'm the kind of reading every post on Twitter and Facebook and unfollowing/muting people that post too much useless things so that would be perfect for me.

sp332
Something like Trillian could work. https://www.trillian.im/ It's more of an IM client but it includes email integration.
visakanv
haha oh man this brings back memories... I used to use this as a substitute for MSN messenger on my school computers when I was a teenager
GrinningFool
I think we call 'em smartphones. THose are the only things I know of that give a unified inbox view: at least for WP8 and BB10, they tie in contacts and conversations across mutliple social and email platforms and give you combined views.

However, you raise a good point - a nice cross-platform solution for desktop use would be a great thing to have. It's kind of odd that it's been done so well for phones, but barely touched for desktop.

One problem related will be the constant influx of 'services that may be interesting', with disparate APIs - any solution should have a good plugin system.

HorizonXP
I agree that this is a problem on the desktop. However, it is the main reason I stick with my BlackBerry Z30: the unified inbox.
xekul
The Blackberry Hub (i.e., the unified inbox) is one of two reasons I'm still using a Blackberry (the other reason, of course, is the physical keyboard).
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kingnothing
If you're looking for a business solution, try something like Desk.com. It doesn't handle text or IM, but it works well for email, Facebook, and Twitter.
kilroy123
I don't know of a service that includes everything, including email... but someone I know made this aggregator for twitter, facebook, and instagram.

https://dwibbles.com/

wellboy
There is one and it's called...wait for it...http://unifiedinbox.com/ :)

But they are in beta still afaik.

danaw
Nice, I'll signup for their beta and give it a look-see
dustingetz
Half the value of all these platforms is they each provide a different experience and thus are good for different things. SMS is urgent, Facebook messages are not, email for important thoughtful things, tweets for helping get attention of busy people with the viral factor. UX is critical to shape your users behavior.
volaski
First thought you were talking about Inbox for everything as in literally everything, including physical mails
olegp
Do you need a unified inbox where you can read all the messages, or do you actually want to be able to search across all your inboxes (like you could with Greplin) or aggregate notifications that you received a new message (Chime)?
danaw
Ideally it would be an inbox in it's simplest form where I can communicate on any platform from one simple interface.
neovive
Once the volume surpasses decent threshold, the UX would be quite difficult to build without some sort of complex grouping or intelligence. The key to a successful unified inbox would be learning what is "important" to each user and customizing the experience accordingly. Otherwise, people would start ignoring busy twitter feeds and focusing on individual emails, IM's, etc, which they could achieve by simply opening each service in a separate browser tab.
sixFingers
Agree completely. It would be possible to abstract away all of these services into a common dialect (so that grouping and filtering works across multiple services) and then let the user "build" different UX approaches by allowing one to group and filter different sources into specific view: ex, group tweets and irc messages and have that group display only some UI stuff, group rss/fb posts and have the UI display some other stuff.
nathan_f77
It's a great idea. I had the idea for a unified messaging service, where you would have one client that connected to Google Chat, Facebook Chat, Skype, IM and SMS. When you wanted to talk to someone, it would communicate using the best service.

But then I bought a MacBook, and Apple's 'Messages' app does everything I need it to. It's IM when both parties are online, and SMS otherwise.

I would also love to see something that tries to unify Reddit, Hacker News, and Google News, although I'm not sure how it could be done.

danaw
That only applies to people who have iOS devices, so it still leaves a whole swatch of people out of the equation.
glomph
Doe you not mean swath or swathe rather than swatch? (Genuinely curious I think this might be a locality thing)
danaw
Oops, I mean "swath" :)
nicksergeant
I use Bitlbee as a unified messaging platform and it works great for me: http://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/news.r.html

Obviously it's a little neckbeard-ey but once you get it setup, it's awesome to have AIM, FB, Google Chat, HipChat, Campfire (and any other Jabber account) all in one little box.

The only thing it's missing for me is iMessages support.

You can also wire up Twitter with it, but I found it too tricky to parse tweets without avatars / inline images, etc.

danaw
Looks pretty sweet, especially for IM, but doesn't have Email which is important, at least for my usecase. Thanks for sharing it!
nicksergeant
Yeah, no email. I use mutt for that :)

Sure thing!

ChikkaChiChi
Lots of ideas, not a lot of products.

Niche? :)

DjangoReinhardt
A few years back, when web2.0 was the buzz word and RSS-based mashups were all the rage, I believe a few websites tried offering this service.

I don't remember the names of these services now but IIRC, input.io (or something like that) was one of them. The site is dead now - didn't get any traction or funding and shut down. A couple of desktop based clients also happened but fizzled out for the same reasons.

Looks like they were quite ahead of their time. :)

interstitial
You need a trendier, buzzier name for it, and perhaps a three-letter acronym. "Inbox of Things" (IoT) should work to gladwellize the minions and get people talking.

But since the chatterati think email is the spawn of old white european males, you need to get rid of "Inbox" all together. Way too emailesque.

Also, we live in the most narcissistic, shallow society ever to have sat idly on this good planet earth, so you need some combination of self, selfie, me, my, myself, you, etc.

Of course, in the selfie-sphere the major issue you will face is appearing "needy" if you respond to pings quickly or respond in a personal, non-selfish way. The proper form of communication in narcissistic society is merely post inane self-expressions in hopes of garnering hip-metrics of reblogs, retweets, likes, upvotes, and other simplistic pings.

So what you really need is an one-way orifice for self-expression that merely reports social metrics back in gamified form. Sort of like a toilet with an AI success coach built in.

The flushing metaphor has its limtis, because "flushing" makes it seem like you don't care about water conservation and other hip non-selfish, selfish things that aid your image-crafting. An "air flush" would solve the water conservation issues. So what sound would an "air flush" make? A swish, a blow? That's it.

So we should call a universal inbox in the selfie age? How about: "Blow Me"