alarm:clock: Datek Online Founder/CTO Launching Zenbe To Remake Email

No insight yet as to whether this is an enterprise, SBM or consumer play. Appears to be a client application since the write-up implies that it will work off of any IMAP or POP account.

March 20, 2007

Datek Online Founder/CTO Launching Zenbe To Remake Email

Peter Stern who co-founded and was CTO of mercurial financial trading startup Datek Online is launching a new startup that aims to greatly improve the email experience, including tie-ins to group calendaring. Stern most recently was an investor with Parkview Ventures. His co-founder at Datek was Jeff Citron who went on to gain fame for financial scandal at Datek as well as the launch of Vonage.

Source: alarm:clock: Datek Online Founder/CTO Launching Zenbe To Remake Email

And some information from the Zenbe site:

Organize Things Your Way

Existing email programs force you to pick a single folder to store a message you want to keep track of. Zenbe lets you assign multiple categories to any email. Do you remember that email from your favorite online retailer advertising discounts on digital cameras? Tag that message “coupon” and “camera” and it's one-click away in either category. You can also tag outgoing messages that your friends will see as suggestions to make it easier for them to file their messages.

Communicate With More Than Just Words

Sending text email just doesn’t cut it all the time. Adding links or images does not tell the whole story. Zenbe lets you create content-rich emails with the click of a button. For example:

• Meeting someone somewhere? Simply drag a map onto your message and type in the address. If you want, Zenbe will even generate directions and attach reviews.
• Is someone picking you up from the airport? Zenbe lets you send dynamic travel plans. Enter your airline and flight number and Zenbe sends your recipient an email with an up-to-the-minute flight status and a map of your flight. The email updates itself whenever it is opened – no need to go to a web site and click the Refresh button.
• Don't be afraid to send photos. Zenbe lets you create a fun slideshow with a few clicks that you can then send to friends and family. No more worrying about cumbersome attachments or files being too large. Zenbe takes care of it for you – your friends and family can just click, sit back and enjoy the show.

Have a Real Conversation

Zenbe offers a conversation mode, which groups similar messages into a single conversation. When reading a reply to an e-mail, or multiple replies to an e-mail, you'll be able to read all of the related emails at once instead of having to piece them together from all over your Inbox. This makes it easy to follow a conversation, regardless of how much time has passed in between replies.

Change Your Perspective

Hate having to click on one message at a time to view it? Zenbe lets you view multiple messages at a time with Newspaper View. With one click you can transform your Inbox to look like a newspaper. The full text of all of your messages is displayed in a convenient column view so you can quickly skim everything and find what interests you the most.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Spam

Zenbe includes innovative technology to help you fight junk mail, with a little help from your friends. When you view your Inbox in Trusted Mode Zenbe only shows messages that are from people you know or from people they know. Your other messages will still be there, but they’ll be out of the way so you can get to the important stuff first.

Get More Done

Zenbe is email with extra kick. Nobody just reads email anymore - they use it to schedule and to plan and to act.

With one click you have access to a full-featured calendar, that's integrated with your email, to-do lists, everything. Zenbe will automatically find events in your email and let you see them in your calendar.  Don't work so hard when people invite you to something with an email - that's what computers are for!

But what about scheduling? With Zenbe, it’s easy to share calendars with your friends and family and other people you trust. You can let them automatically see all of your calendar events, or only those that you choose to share. And you can easily see their shared events in your calendar. Scheduling appointments is a breeze when you have everyone’s schedule at your fingertips.

Manage Files With Ease

Ever get frustrated when you have to dig through your messages to find an attachment someone sent? Or have you had an email returned to you because the attachment you tried to send was too large? Not with Zenbe, you won't. 

A unique File View lets you quickly view any attachments you’ve received by sender or by file type. You can store and organize documents you want to keep online and access them from any computer.

With Zenbe, don't worry about large attachments being rejected. Zenbe uses a unique method of delivering attachments to make sure your recipients can always get the files you send, no matter how large they are or what email service they are using.

Share Your Contacts

Is your address book out of date? Let your friends help you keep it current. Zenbe lets your share some or all of your address book with your friends. When they update shared contact information you’ll automatically see the changes in your address book and vice versa.

Protect Your Personal Email Address

Many web sites require you to give your email address as part of a registration process. But providing your personal email address can lead to undesirable consequences, including spam and other unsolicited messages.

With Zenbe you can create new email addresses on-the-fly so that you don’t have to give out your primary email address to just anybody. For example, if your address is karen@zenbe.com, you can give the address karen.shopping@zenbe.com to any of your online shopping sites. You’ll still get all your shopping related email, but we’ll keep it out of your Inbox so it doesn’t clutter up your more important messages. No setup is required and you can make up anything you want whenever you want – karen.business@zenbe.com, karen.junkmail@zenbe.com, karen.quilting@zenbe.com - the possibilities are endless!

Stay Plugged In

Zenbe offers RSS feed integration to help keep you plugged into the stories that interest you. Thousands of web sites like the New York Times, YouTube and CNN provide RSS feeds allow you to get the latest news and stories on the web delivered right to you. Instead of remembering to visit your favorite web sites you’ll get the content you want right within Zenbe. And just like your email messages, you can add tags to the stories to help you keep track of them for later.

Keep Your Current Email Address

Like your current email address? No problem. Zenbe can manage email for any account that supports POP or IMAP. You can continue to send and receive email from that account, but with all the benefits of Zenbe.

More Power

Power email users can take advantage of Zenbe’s advanced features to customize their experience even further. Powerful email processing rules let you automatically tag, delete, or forward emails based on lots of different criteria. Robust search functionality ensures that the messages you need are never far away. And if you still don't have what you need, you can access our rich data API to develop your own extensions and applications built on top of Zenbe!

Source: www.zenbe.com - The Zenbe Way