DueToDos – Managing Business Communication
The world today is fast paced. Business is conducted on the move. People are constantly traveling and keeping track of correspondence with clients can be overwhelming, for small companies, to say the least.
In comes DueToDos. The web platform allows people to keep track of their sent messages and through a simple procedure schedule reminders and team collaborations based on these. All you have to do is to send a Bcc copy of your message to an email address provided and through the dashboard of your account on DueToDos, manage how you want to follow up on the conversation. Administrators and managers can assign tasks and keep track of them through their control panels to check on the status of different users.
The website also allows users to add additional email accounts to send notifications to along with the ability to restrict the task between certain calender dates. Summaries of daily activities can be scheduled for team members to keep them abreast of the project status.
The website is still in beta and currently works only on an invite system.
What they say about themselves
DueToDos is your outgoing to-do list. Take back control of your sent mail! We solve email fatigue be allowing you to focus on what really matters, who you need to follow up with.
Why it could be a success
Whereas other services focus on incoming emails, DueToDos makes management of sent emails easy. Scheduling reminders, summaries and team collaboration and management are some of the highlights of this startup. These features can help small businesses to keep the cost of communication and management within their resources while giving them enough facilities to conduct the business activities efficiently.
GoaQoo – Ask Questions Anonymously
It doesn’t take much imagination to see how much fun and how revealing this site could be. GoaQoo lets you ask questions secretly so long as you know the email address of the person who you want an answer from. They won’t be passed your identity or your email address, and if they answer GoaQoo will send their reply back to you.
It may not be a serious business idea but it’s such an intriguing site that it’s sure to be used. No doubt teenagers will love it for asking those embarrassing questions they really need to know the answers to. Relationship questions are sure to be high on the list, and perhaps some people who never grow beyond teenage will also be using it! It’s hard to know if more mature people would trust this system, especially the ones asked to answer an anonymous question. It’s bound to be a hit with secondary school kids, though, and I must admit I’m going to give it a test run.
WhoReadMe – Track Your Emails
This online service lets you sign up for free and track your emails to see if they arrive, when they get opened, if they get deleted without being opened, if somebody else opens the email rather than the recipient, and if any attachments were opened. One of the most frustrating things about email is not knowing whether or not they arrive and if the person is deliberately not responding or if they never received your communication.
WhoReadMe can go beyond tracking what happens to your emails. It can also tell you the recipient’s IP Number, their browser and also their location on the map. This will all be invisible to the recipient. To use WhoReadMe you sign up on the website, click on an activation email and then you can send any emails you want tracked via the website, but your usual email address will be given to the recipient. There is a limit on the number of emails you can track per day, but they can have a number of CCs on them.
FamiliLink – Easy Internet for Older Relatives
While many older people have become internet enthusiasts, there are also many who won’t even use it for the simple things like email. FamiLink provides a simple way to get your relatives online, making it easier to stay in touch with them. This seems like an invaluable service as it’s the older family members we need to keep a check on and internet connection could also help them avoid feelings of loneliness and isolation. It’s a pity when they don’t use it, so this approach will help younger family members include them in the loop of online communications.
The way it works is by making everything easy to use and also by making it all accessible from the Famililink website. A younger relative can sign up for their older family members, and then show them how to find the site and log in. Then they will find their emails, calendar of appointments, picture and video sharing, and even indicators to show which of their friends and family are online, all in the same place. Emails are in large, clear text, and to see photos there’s no need to click on links or downloads. Instead there’s a clear tag labelled ‘Pictures’. Other tags let the user find messages, contacts, and a calendar where they include family events, doctor’s appointments and medication. While more able elderly users will be able to do all of this themselves, it would also be possible for younger relatives to set it all up for those who are less capable.
There’s even a ‘Send Urgent Message’ button which will alert a group of people you can select as trustworthy to help in case of emergency. The Contacts page displays all friends and family in an attractive way, with photos, an online indicator, and the weather in their location. Pictures and videos can be shared from other popular sites, and FamiliLink makes them all easy to view using its straightforward tags and buttons. Phone numbers are listed with the contacts, but as many older people prefer to talk rather than type a voice connection would make it even better. The service is free for the first 2,000 users and it seems like the type of service that should be available without cost.
MailMyWeb – Browse Websites via Email
This is a service for people who are blocked from surfing the internet by their organisations, so it will be somewhat controversial but will no doubt be popular among those wanting to surf freely at work. It employs an ingenious method so that users can browse the web via their email client, as email is permitted by most employers. My question would be how secure people will feel about using their email to do this as it’s a deliberate breach of their employment conditions and could be spotted by IT admins. Setting that aside, it could be a useful way of accessing the internet via email in other situations too.
It’s a free service, once you fill in registration details, including the email address you are permitted to use. To start surfing the web it’s quite simple: you send an email to robot@mailmyweb.com with ‘help’ as the subject to get instructions by reply email. After that it’s possible to access any website, including videos and search engines, by sending an email to robot@mailmyweb.com with the URL as the message subject. An email comes very quickly in reply with the webpage in the body of the text. If you click on any of the links they are automatically sent as an email to MailMyWeb and the new page appears in a reply email. For search engines the same method is used, with the URL of the search engine as the subject of the email and the key words included in the text preceded and followed by ###.
Although it looks and feels like surfing the internet it is all actually going through the email client. It’s a little bit more fiddly than straightforward web browsing, but not much, and only a few of the links didn’t work for me – not bad considering it’s still in beta. The links that didn’t work were complex ones, and most straightforward links did work. As it all goes through the email client the result is a long list of emails you have used to access pages, so remember to delete all of these before they get spotted! I’m busy thinking of other ways this can be used to access the internet in places you only have email access, as I’m sure it’s also useful in ways that aren’t job threatening! Leave your ideas in the comments.
Socially!