[Update - Beta invites now available, at the end of the review]
Recently there has been increased coverage on how in this digital age, the large majority of people are balancing increased inflow of information. Email, Facebook, Twitter and countless other networks and feeds have meant that many of us suffer at one point or another with information overload. With a problem comes an opportunity for a solution and this is where threadsy aims to play – by unifying your inflow of communication from multiple email addresses and networks.
The first thing that is noticable about threadsy is that the team have put a lot of effort into designing a clean user interface, essential in a app of this sort where you want to both be able to manage your multiple touch points but also be able to distinguish them apart so you know what network or email address the message came from. The UI features a two column collapsible design where your main content area is your all encompassing inbox. This features all messages sent directly to you whether they be an email, a Facebook message, or a Twitter DM or @reply. To the right of this is your ‘unbound’ column which includes all the status updates from Facebook friends and your Twitter followers – effectively the area that you do not need to read and react to every message but may want to browse at different points in the day. The unbound column also includes instant messaging integration for Google Talk.
threadsy features close integration with its supported services, including being the first service to use Facebook’s inbox API allowing you to reply to people directly in threadsy who send you a Facebook message. It also features the obligatory ability to like items and leave comments as well as adding Twitter followers and starring/archiving Gmail emails. A new feature Venturebeat reportedly stated is also in the works includes the ability to ‘abhor’ Facebook status updates from threadsy which will then appear on Facebook as a link back to a threadsy page!
One of the features I enjoyed the most when using threadsy is its ability to tap into each of your networks to pull together a unified bio on the person you are currently reading a message from. Click in your inbox on any inbound message an threadsy goes to work on the right of your screen showing you a brief bio, photo’s and status updates on whoever sent you the message. This naturally works the best if you are friends on Facebook and connected on Twitter to the person as threadsy can only retrieve information you would otherwise have had access to or is publicly viewable.
I have been on the service each day since receiving my invite and have already found that it means I can get back to people sooner, and that I am less likely to miss someones message. That being the case I think the team at threadsy have put together the closes solution yet to combining multiple forms of digital communication in one service. If the team continue to add new features as they have been doing then threadsy very well could be a ‘can’t miss’ application for people to use when they open to the wider public.
[Update - Thanks to threadsy we now have beta invites available. Visit threadsy HERE to sign up]
You should check Silentale (silentale.com), another promising startup in that arena. Not only they capture all the messages and contacts from your emails, social networks, twitter and more, but they build a searchable archive, hosted in the cloud, that you can access from their web interface and different apps built on their open API
Threadsy is cumbersome and slow. Check out http://www.zood.com, designed to simplify the information flow and distribution of your networks.
Really a great service, enjoying it, despite lots of bugs to iron out.
I’ve been using Threadsy for a couple of days, and I love being able to check one space for all my messages. However it lacks some key features for twitter that I use a lot, specifically user searches and ‘in reply to’ options. It’s great for when I’m busy and want to check all my sites quickly, but I need more. Hopefully they’ll figure it all out. I’d also like a desk top application.
I’m back to the ol’ Seesmic now.
I like the Threadsy idea. And from what I’ve seen using the Jolicloud Prism app, that idea seems to work. Unfortunately, as a service, it has some way to go yet. It actually made Google warn me of ‘suspicious activity’ on my account and Facebook kept refusing to connect.
I always thought these cool new services tried to first showcase a startup’s technology and then get funding based on a large and loyal userbase. With Threadsy, and the flakiness of the service, I wonder how that’s gonna pan out.
geht mir ähnlich nach ein paar Minuten draufgucken – kommt mir außerdem ein bisschen vor wie eine Kompaktanlage, wo ich immer noch jemand bin, der sich individuell die einzelnen Geräte zusammen stellt. Die eigentliche Herausforderung ist doch nicht, das große Bild zu sehen, sondern sinnvoll zu filtern – also das Gegenteil dessen, was Threadsy macht. Oder?
This comment was originally posted on Lummaland – das Weblog
ich erwarte eigentlich, dass sich da im laufe des beta-prozesses noch einiges tut.
This comment was originally posted on Lummaland – das Weblog
hätte ich nicht besser schreiben können – ging mir exakt genauso: fehlendes OAuth, das ständige Gebimmel und wenn man gewohnt ist, GMail per Hotkeys und exzessivem Tagging zu benutzen, ist das keine echte Erleichterung…
This comment was originally posted on Lummaland – das Weblog
Threadsy Rocks! I’ve tried Silentale, but love the simple and elegant view Threadsy offers. I have tested using it with Firefox, IE, Chrome and Opera 10. It works best with Firefox. It had some quirkiness with Chrome and lacked some functionally with Opera 10(my favorite browser). For what it saves me in time, I’m okay with switching back to Firefox. Hopefully it will be more compatible with Opera 10 in the future.