One of the downfalls of conferences where you're scrambling to cover things live is that you don't actually get to test out the products you're writing about. Between the spotty Internet connection and end of day fatigue, one company that I think deserved a little more of a look was OtherInbox, the service that helps you fight both bacn and spam from services you've sign up for.
A day later I've already run into one somewhat serious problem: upon sign-up, it automatically sets you up to receive daily notifications of your in-box status, even if there are no new messages. These go to the e-mail address you gave them when you registered. This means it's actively continuing a problem it set out to solve.
Upon sign-up, OtherInbox automatically opts you in to get daily e-mail updates to the address you gave them, which is a problem the service was designed to stop.
(Credit: CNET Networks)The good news is that you can tweak these notifications to only send you something when you get new messages. There's also a slew of RSS feeds you can subscribe to that will deliver the new messages to your favorite reader for managing there.
My advice to the OtherInbox guys is to practice what you preach and set that notification service to "off" from the start.
That small quibble aside, I'm loving the service. The same general thing can be had with Gmail and some smart filtering management, but it's not nearly as sexy or easy to set up for someone like my mom, who could just keep her special OtherInbox address in a text file on her desktop and use it when needed.
Update: Good news on two fronts: the setting has now been set as opt-in when you sign up instead of automatically setting you up to get messages every day. Also, we've got 100 more invites to give out, so to get yours visit this page.
OtherInbox is a service that helps with one of the growing problems of using Web services: e-mail overload. More specifically, services that take your information and sell it to third parties--thus filling up your in-box with decentralized junk.
OtherInbox works by giving you a special address you can use when you sign up for things and it helps you filter them in a central location with tags and layout akin to Apple's Mail application. Each "subscription" reads like its own in-box.
The service may be most useful for figuring out what services are selling out your e-mail address to other parties, but it's also good for handling bacn--the messages you may want from a service, but not necessarily filling up your in-box. What makes it special is that users can effectively kill off that special address making the messages bounce back to the people who would be spamming you.
One thing to consider is that you can currently do this with Gmail. I do this with my in-box by adding a +servicename after my username, coming out to something like Yourname+Amazon@gmail.com. That way you can phase them out completely using a simple filter if you start getting spammed. OtherInbox offers you a little more security with its block feature, and the fact you're basically signing up for another address.
The service is currently in private beta, but made its public debut at Monday's TechCrunch50 conference. On a side note: you need to provide OtherInbox your e-mail address when you sign-up. And we have 25 invites to give out--so go here to get yours while they last.
OtherInbox lets you use a special sign-up address when signing up for various services. That way you can tell if someone's sold your information to third parties.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)
- prev
- 1
- next
