I read this article today about how Mozilla Thunderbird is coming together and they’re working on the ‘Universal Inbox’; this is SO MUCH what everyone needs.

And I agree with a lot of what it has to say.

I was discussing this with a friend of mine the other day about this very same problem and he posted a link to RainDrop and it’s a very good point.

People are communicating in all kinds of portals, Instant Message, email, forums, Twitter, Facebook…. the list goes on.

There has to be a way to make sense of it all- maybe Raindrop and be that answer.

It looks as though Raindrop is going to do that for the Thunderbird group. In my last review of Thunderbird I thought the program is getting better, but it’s not making big steps, it walking gradually, but one of the things that I thought was missing was it’s ability to follow trends and be more social.

The fact is email is only one facet of communication now and people are really wanting to connect and follow; interacting with others. And email clients aren’t just for email, they’re being being redesigned to be social portals, to be interactive.

Xobni is an good example of being able to bring interactive information in to an email client. They have pushed the communication model to be able to search Google for contacts, linked to Facebook and Linkedin; they see the value of being able to get I there and data mine the web for your activities and interests, but not only that, but to help track your friends as well.

I Twitter and I Facebook, and want to see what my friends are doing/posting on Facebook. I’m not a stalker, but it’s fun to see when your friends post pictures or share joke that may not make it to an email.

There’s such a wide range of things that need to be part of an email client nowadays and unfortunately, they just aren’t there.

For instance, Instant Message functionality in the email program. Just about everyone has an Instant Messaging account of some manner. And being able to see if a friend is online after an email is awesome; you can just Instant Message that person right then and respond to the email. Other programs like eMclient are working on this now.

This is an early version of Raindrop:

Here’s a presentation from Mozilla Thunderbird/Raindrop team:

This functionality could easily make it in to a future Thunderbird.

One of the things that I keep finding so fascinating about Google is their developers; they continue to think, innovate, rethink and redesign the current standards of today and try to make things better and function on a more common level. And I think Raindrop is a move in that direction.

You can test out Raindrop for yourself; install it. –keeping in mind it’s very early in development.

Thanks,
LHenryJr.
www.lehsys.com

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