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2,433 Unread Emails Is An Opportunity For An Entrepreneur

techcrunch.com — The benefits of the new ways we communicate also mean there ’s a lot more of it. The volume of communication requests for most people today are far, far beyond what they can handle. Few people today respond to every communication they receive. Someone out there has the beginning of an idea on how we can better manage our electronic communication.

Bury
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  • j1a1g1, on 03/24/2008, -1/+6Either an opportunity for an Entrepreneur or an excuse for one to be lazy!
  • shadowsa, on 03/24/2008, -0/+36or a lot of spam like this post
    • jackyyll, on 03/24/2008, -0/+13Yeah seriously.. This article was about.. nothing...
  • nova912, on 03/24/2008, -3/+26All the subject lines are probably something along the lines of...
    RE: m@ke your pen15 hug3!
  • NaziHatinChimp, on 03/24/2008, -6/+1He has less than I do.
  • oo7evan, on 03/24/2008, -5/+101. Auto reply BS answers
    2. ???
    3. Profit
    • rjc1187, on 03/26/2008, -0/+41. Try to be clever by using a south park joke that died a long time ago
      2. ???
      3. Nobody profits
  • footodors, on 03/24/2008, -0/+27thought he had a solution or something.
  • chrissku, on 03/24/2008, -1/+20How did this advertisement end up on the front page of Digg?
  • Dylson, on 03/24/2008, -9/+4IS IT I CAN HAZ DIGGS NOW PLZ? KTHX
  • seantubridy, on 03/24/2008, -0/+55If you get 1000 legitimate business inquiry emails a day and you haven't figured out that you need to hire a staff to handle that, then:
    1. You're probably lying or
    2. There's something wrong with your business sense and I feel sorry for anyone entering into and dealings with you.
    • domokunt, on 03/24/2008, -1/+2Some people just love to "have a lot on my plate" just so they can feel important. Even if its stuff which most people could deal with more efficiently.
    • 11oops, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2If you claim to get 1000+ business emails a day and are still using a gmail account, what are the odds that you're 100% full of *****?
      • glinsvad, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Are you saying gmail wouldn't be able to handle the volume or that it would be unmanageable by webmail? Gmail has POP3 you know...
    • yojiffyskippy, on 03/24/2008, -1/+10Agreed and anyone that periodically declares "email bankruptcy" and deletes all emails is an idiot. Just the other day, I received an email from a complete stranger that wants to give me millions of dollars for FREE! Just think if I declared "email bankruptcy" before reading THAT email.
  • artificialgrey, on 03/24/2008, -3/+18Pointless article - this guy is just an attention-whore lazy douche - whole thing sounds like he's bragging about how ***** lazy he is. Don't know why anyone who want to get a hold of this guy, as his writing is so boring and uninspired. Buried.
    • Wakuko, on 03/24/2008, -2/+1Moreover, they are M$ bitches who only attack google and apple.
      Check the stories for last month, 15 attacks on google and 10 on apple but no M$.
      Heard of PayPerPost?
  • saxreturns, on 03/24/2008, -3/+4"Today, answering the phone when you are around other people is considered insulting."

    Since when? I've never had any complaints and I don't mind when other people do it.
    • rrbest, on 03/24/2008, -1/+10I find it annoying
    • pilot3033, on 03/24/2008, -0/+9pulling out your cell phone and talking if you are already in a conversation can be very insulting. At the very least, it will make the person you are talking with question what is more important, and then ask them self why you two are even talking.

      Exceptions to the rule, yes. Often, if I am expecting phone calls I will let the people I am with know to expect it. If it rings and I wasn't expecting it, I quick check of caller ID, and an "I'm sorry, give me one moment..." if it's from family/may be urgent. Otherwise I silence the phone and send the to voicemail.

      Answering the phone without saying anything, and just stopping the conversation is not healthy, and many people probably won't say anything, but having been on that end several times myself, I know that it is best to just wait until later to check the voicemail.
      • fuckinhell, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3Or another situation is when you are talking to someone over the phone and they say, I have a call coming in, hang on. Or even worse, they call you and say that. WTF. CALL THEM BACK!!!! You are talking to me right now. Rude bastard.
    • yabos, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3It's not insulting if you're around other people but if you're in the middle of talking to someone and the phone rings you should not take the phone call over the conversation.
  • jcaino, on 03/24/2008, -1/+2sounds like someone has a catch-all mailbox...
  • jturbo, on 03/24/2008, -0/+16Confucius Say "Venture Capitalist that makes no time to reply to his email will always venture but will never capitalize."
  • seantubridy, on 03/24/2008, -3/+4If you are the person with the idea to save us all, send me an email and tell me all about it. Actually, strike that. Drop by my house and tell me all about it. I don’t want your message to get lost in my inbox. Ha ha ha ha! See, that's funny because I get a lot of emails! Oh, I crack me up.
    No, but seriously, don't drop by my house.
  • webosb, on 03/24/2008, -0/+6ever try filtering with gmail or using message rules in outlook? he needs to learn how to use these features
  • UpBeetRob, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Kevin Rose talked about this at FOWA, they come up with some reasonable solutions / reasons why this might not be feasible to solve. Although I imagine anyone getting that many emails would be reasonably successful and able to afford a service that handles this issue well.

    http://www.futureofwebapps.com/pastevents.html
  • KaiSe7eN, on 03/24/2008, -5/+7I admit it. My email response rates are lame. I have tried many different approaches and techniques, yet I fail.

    "yet I FAIL!." As you always will.

    Bury this *****.
  • mediaspree, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2This was Kevin Roses idea for a new web app. at the "Future Of Web Apps" conference in Miami. Just Sayin...
  • Radica1Faith, on 03/24/2008, -0/+5umm...inbox filters have always worked fine for me.
  • emptyo, on 03/24/2008, -0/+7The Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss addresses this subject in full. He outsourced his email to a personal assistant in India that goes through it, sorts it, and summarizes it. Pretty cool...
  • kinerry, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2This is why you would have people you know mark their emails high priority or have them add something to the subject line
  • OpaqueMurdock, on 03/24/2008, -1/+1I understand the distain some people are showing for the article, but I myself wish for better tools in dealing with email and like the author, I have a failing of imagination as to exactly what those tools should be. By the way I am savy with rules and filtering, I just don't like the idea of trusting them 100% and missing something important, so every so often I do a manual scan which for me takes forever do to a bit of a brain short circuit.

    All I know is that it feels like I am using the same skateboard I started with 15 years ago but instead of skating down the sidewalk I am expected to do some pretty serious moves... depending on who you are, getting your first set of kryptonics will make all the difference in the world.

    In other words, if you are happy with the state of email clients (hell, email protocols for that matter) then good for you... I applaud your skill at dealing with mediocrity. I think many of us would really like (and some need) something a lot better.
  • luke374, on 03/24/2008, -0/+5Solution:
    Get a second email address, and don't ***** whore it out to the world.
  • nycmac247, on 03/24/2008, -1/+2What value did I get out of reading that, again?
    And why would someone hire a writer that is obviously an idiot and should be mowing lawns for a living?
    (not that a person can't find honor in mowing laws - just that it has minimized exposure to computers!11!!)
  • petecampbell, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Co-oridinate emails by keyword. If 10 people ask a similar question, a system will merge all those emails into a thread (data obtained by the keywords) - ready for you to quickly reply to them all.

    Should I head to the patenting office?
  • HeyaBILL, on 03/24/2008, -4/+2Dugg for Macintosh picture.
  • pcpimpster, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Stop sipping your latte and ***** get to work already.
  • mrjoanofarc, on 03/24/2008, -1/+2Mine has 3181. :/ Just cause I imported my Gmail to the Mac mail client. :P I'm slowly going through my old emails and reliving the past... http://i30.tinypic.com/11rvpmq.png
  • aetherboy, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2I don't mean for this to be considered "blog spam" but I actually started a blog on how I deal with this stuff earlier this year that has some practical information. I won't put the complete link here, you'll have to piece it together a bit so as to hopefully not ***** off all the Diggers who label every blog as blogspam. You can check it out at: infoswamp dot com.
    I'm horrible at dealing with this kind of overload myself and its funny the kinds of things you realize about it when you're putting yourself under a microscope. For example, I found out i'm the king of procrastination and I'm willing to do lots of annoying little tasks to put off the big ones. This helps me get through email since if you put your mind to it, realistically you can get through an average email in 5 minutes or less.
  • xsecretfiles, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Maybe you are having way too much e-mail beacuse you haven't learned to setup your POP-mail acount or the i-map thing?

  • propagandhi, on 03/24/2008, -1/+3This is so bad, I don't know whether to bury it as SPAM or just LAME. BURIED
  • hdmoncue, on 03/24/2008, -1/+02,420 are spam.
  • quisph, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2Oh, ffs. Hire a personal secretary if your prominence in the world is such that you can't keep up with your correspondence. This is not a new problem.
  • christophelyon, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1GTD is the solution.
  • phre3k187, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2buried
  • lutey, on 03/24/2008, -0/+0Those entrepreneurs probably filed it next to auto dog walkers and clothes folding robots. Stop wishing for some ridiculous solution and actually do something about it. This strategy worked for me.

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9731497615 ...
  • ejtttje, on 03/24/2008, -1/+12433? Pshaw! I'm at 10458 (unread) and counting! (18915 total!)
    That's going back to March 1 2006 (I do clean it out every once in a while...)
    http://i26.tinypic.com/2psm342.png
  • ultrasparc, on 03/24/2008, -0/+0It's called a spam filter.
  • eregorn, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1There is a fine art to saying absolutely nothing with many words.
  • drrichard42, on 04/05/2008, -0/+0This is bad news for people who use email marketing as a channel
  • habenneas, on 04/16/2008, -0/+1Fast text mirror: http://www.lynxcache.org/usr/1/2_433_Unread_Emails ...
  • bobdylan27, on 04/21/2008, -0/+1what a pointless article.
  •  

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