Tech Crunch 50: OtherInbox: You Can't Avoid The Email Mountain, But Maybe You Can Prevent the Avalanche

Is everyone else noticing how the email sector is heating up? With Xobni and a bunch of other startups getting ink -- err, electrons -- this space is growing.

One of these entries, OtherInbox, was launched in beta at TC 50, and their model is worth your attention. The idea here is to better manage the avalanche of email each of us receives by assigning separate email accounts to every company you do business with, and then manage them all from one place.

OtherInbox helps you to spend less time reading and managing your email. Instead of having a single email address such as johnsmith23@gmail.com, you get an unlimited number of email addresses at your own domain name such as johnsmith.otherinbox.com. Any address @johnsmith.otherinbox.com goes to OtherInbox, so you can easily assign a different email address to every website. Without having to set up any folders or rules, your email gets organized so that it’s easy to jump right to the messages you care about most. Also, if a website starts to send you spam, you can stop it with the powerful new Block button.

The model is intriguing not because of the multiple accounts bit -- everyone or most everyone online has been doing that for years. Rather, it is in the system by which you manage all these accounts from one place. It sort of works like sub-urls, meaning that you assign a sub-bucket to every entity you deal with. So for example

macys@johnsmith.otherinbox.com
RNC@johnsmith.otherinbox.com
eddiebauer@johnsmith.otherinbox.com

Etc.

You can also create a vanity url, like JohnSmith.com, if you avail yourself of the premium service.

So all these accounts get managed from a web based interface that is vaguely reminiscent of Outlook, to make it easy to use.



I like the model. There are a lot of good entries in the emerging "email 2.0 arena," but this one is definitely worth a peruse.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.