PowerInbox Blog

Why am I seeing "this content is not available outside of facebook" inside the Facebook PowerApp?

2012-04-22T15:23:00.000-04:00

This error does not happen all the time, but when it does, it is usually because the Facebook API is returning "false" for the content generated by your friend that you are trying to view through PowerInbox.

This is usually caused by your friends privacy settings, specifically the "How people bring your info to apps they use" setting:

If your friend's privacy settings do not allow apps to view their data, Facebook does not let PowerInbox display that data (comment, post etc).

Facebook's privacy settings change periodically, but as of this writing, if a new user signs up for Facebook, the default value of this setting allows sharing of profile/events/posts with apps. However for existing users it is an unknown because of the combination of previous Facebook privacy changes and the many posts around the internet about how to "lockdown" Facebook privacy. Here's an example of such a post - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/FacebooksPrivacySettingsAreTooComplexForANYONEToUseChangeTheseSettingsToday.aspx

This error should not happen on every Facebook email, so if you are seeing it on every email, please let us know - support@powerinbox.com

PowerInbox. Now, With No Downloads!

2012-04-18T12:05:00.000-04:00

At PowerInbox, our goal is simple - we want to make your email experience better. Every day more than 294 billion email messages are sent across the globe and we want to make that time well spent. To that end we are extremely happy to announce three new updates to PowerInbox:

1. PowerInbox Connect: After the launch of our open API in Feb, we heard from a lot of our users that you loved the concept of PowerInbox and Power Apps, but having to download a plugin seemed like a lot of work. Well, worry no more. Starting today, we have launched PowerInbox Connect, an API to directly integrate with email clients and thus remove the need for users of a particular email client to have to download a plugin. As part of the Connect API launch, PowerInbox is directly integrated with Fuser (http://www.fuser.com/), Unified Inbox (https://unifiedinbox.com/) and SMAK (http://mysmak.com/) with additional integrations planned shortly. Users of these email clients will be able to experience PowerInbox functionality across Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and many other services starting today – no additional download required. So get started on any of these email clients, or just let us know which email client you’d like to see us integrated with next?

2. PowerInbox.com Redesign: When we first launched PowerInbox.com, we wanted to make sure we conveyed all the awesome features of PowerInbox right in the homepage (seemed like a great idea at the time). However, this cluttered up the user experience and we wanted to improve this for you. Starting today, we’re pleased to announce the launch of our new, super minimalist, super awesome website. There are only two things the user should focus on when they arrive at PowerInbox, understand what the product does and get started on downloading it. Thats exactly what the new website redesign does. Simplicity has its own awesomeness. What do you think of the new redesign? Let us know!

3. More Power Apps: And as always, we want to keep providing you, our users with the latest and greatest Power Apps. With that in mind, we’re happy to add Apps for Instagram, Boloco and Pivotal Tracker, increasing the number of total apps we support to more than twenty. Instagram has experienced tremendous growth over the last two years and was among the most requested features by our users. So we wanted to make sure we provided our users with the functionality they wanted. Users of Instagram will now be able to directly view and comment on Instagram pictures within their email. Want to see other apps in your email? No worries, just drop us a note!

Hotmail treats inline styles differently than Gmail

2012-03-26T18:02:00.000-04:00

In the process of building support for Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, we've obviously noticed some discrepancies in the way they render emails. One of the more odd ones we've seen is how Gmail and Hotmail seem to handle inline styles.

It's generally regarded that inline styles are the safest way to make sure that your emails will look as you expect. It doesn't mean that all the properties are supported by the mail client, but the ones that are supported will at least be rendered.

Unfortunately, we just discovered that Hotmail strips out the title and style attributes from <a> tags. You can imagine how annoying this can be considering that Gmail supports this and things render as expected. It seems they want to ensure that emails are consistent in showing links as blue, underlined text. This is certainly reasonable from a security mindset, but in some way also speaks to the user base they're trying to help.

Obviously we can go ahead and make the plug that if you get your user's to install PowerInbox and view your interactive email, none of these display quirks apply anymore. Happy coding ;)

How to get a 100% click through rate on emails

2012-03-26T16:43:00.000-04:00

Getting people to open your emails could be one of the hardest tasks you face as someone running a service on the Internet. The majority of email users are inundated with useless emails or haven't figured out processes to manage their inbox properly.

The key goal with any email from a web app is to deliver a small piece of information that is actionable and teaches the reader one thing. This helps ensure that the user views your email as useful, time efficient, and worth opening every time.

We at PowerInbox of course propose another way that you can accomplish all this, make an interactive email on our platform. What do we mean? Our 3rd party platform launched in February with a lot of great articles covering our launch partners and some of the possibilities. The basic premise is that we enable you to take your existing web application and run it in your user's inbox. It's an elegant platform that doesn't take much modification to your existing app to make it work, please check out the Developer section of our website for more information.

One of the biggest advantages for making an interactive email is that you get to run your own web analytics in the app the user is interacting with. This means that you can now track when someone is reading your email and what they're doing in the email just like you would on your website.

This also implies that anyone who opens your email is now going to have essentially "clicked out to your site". Static emails are generally hoping to be opened, but even more so, hoping a call to action will be clicked so that the user is coming to your site to do something. However, that action to be taken can now be right in the email, so not only have you gotten a 100% click through rate, your chance of success is exponentially higher since you've hopefully designed your interactive email to be extremely useful and time efficient for the user.

We've seen great results within the interactive emails we've built internally and from our partners telling us that engagement has increased. We'll highlight some specific engagement increases in the future, but overall, making an interactive email is the easiest way to enhance your user's experience and increase your click through rate overnight. Let us know if you have any thoughts or questions!

We just launched our API today to let anyone build interactive emails.

2012-02-08T12:20:00.001-05:00

Check out http://powerinbox.com/learnmore to get started.

We are also launching betas of PowerInbox for Outlook, Internet Explorer and Safari.

Today, PowerInbox is now compatible with Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010 (32-bit) & Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo on Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Rockmelt.

We have been working with 10 launch partners to help them create interactive email:

FollowUp.cc: Enables one-click snoozing of emails for later review.
Fundraise: Allows donations inside emails.
NextWidgets: Browse store items inside emails.
OmniStrat: Enables response to SocialStrat panel activity within emails.
Senexx: Facilitates construction of enterprise knowledge inside emails.
Smak: Enables communication alerts within emails.
Symbyoz: Connect with your network inside emails.
TimeTrade: Schedule meetings within emails.
TumbleCube: Enables project management inside emails.
Vsnap: Allows Vsnap videos to be viewed within emails.

Check out a video of the NextWidgets interactive email:

More launch coverage:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/08/powerinbox-the-service-that-turns-emails-into-apps-launches-api/

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/02/08/powerinbox-launches-a-massive-api-letting-anyone-add-apps-to-their-emails/

http://techcocktail.com/powerinbox-api-2012-02#.TzKjNrEgd5Y

PowerInbox Raises Additional $800K In Seed Funding

2011-10-05T14:21:00.001-04:00

Our friends over at TechCrunch just wrote about our recent seed funding. Thanks guys!

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/05/powerinbox-raises-additional-800k-in-seed-funding/

Ask, and ye shall receive ... Google+ app is now live!

2011-09-08T12:08:00.000-04:00

Since our launch three weeks ago, we have had a survey on our homepage to find what PowerApps you want in your emails.

Well, the internet has spoken and guess who was #1?

Yes, Google+ (the fastest growing site ever) narrowly beat out LinkedIn as the most requested PowerApp.

So that's what we worked on. First, we created our own internal Google+ API. Then we used our Google+ API to create a Google+ client. And finally, we turned our Google+ client into a Google+ PowerApp.

As far as we know, this is the first, and only, third party Google+ client.

To try it out, just open any "added you on Google+" email and you will see the Google+ PowerApp.

Today, you can use the PowerApp to add people to your existing circles. As we build out our Google+ API, you will be able to create circles, view post, add comments and more - right inside your email.

So give our Google+ PowerApp a spin and let us know what you think!

Also, the PowerInbox developer API is coming soon to let anyone create PowerApps. If you are interested in our pilot program, please contact developers@powerinbox.com

And if you would like to join us in creating the future of email, contact jobs@powerinbox.com. We are based in Cambridge, MA and are hiring code warriors, our first product guru and first bizdev ninja.

PowerInbox is now live!

2011-08-16T14:55:00.010-04:00

After months of hard work, we are pleased to announce that PowerInbox is live!

You can use PowerInbox in Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo mail today.

Head to http://powerinbox.com and see how PowerInbox will make your emails better

Today, we are also announcing that we have received $1.1 million in seed funding. Check out our press release for more details.

If you run into any problems or would like to give us feedback, simply email us or check out our forums.

Thanks and hope you love your PowerInbox as much as we do!

BostInno: PowerInbox Brings Your Email to Life: Respond to Twitter & Facebook Directly in Your Inbox

2011-08-03T13:29:00.002-04:00

http://bostinnovation.com/2011/07/29/powerinbox-brings-your-email-to-life-respond-to-twitter-facebook-directly-in-your-inbox-beta-invites/

Xconomy: PowerInbox Sees the Future of Social Software Platforms, and Its Name Is… E-mail

2011-08-03T13:24:00.002-04:00

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2011/07/28/powerinbox-sees-the-future-of-social-software-platforms-and-its-name-is%E2%80%A6-e-mail/

PowerInbox is now in private Beta for Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail

2011-07-06T19:33:00.006-04:00

Invites started going out on July 4th. We are sending hundreds of invites out everyday.

Join the invite list at http://powerinbox.com today!

Once you get an invite, simply click the link in the email to install PowerInbox (Beta) for Chrome or Firefox.

Then, just use Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail as usual. PowerInbox will kick in when you open an email from Facebook, Groupon and Twitter.

View Facebook photos, send out tweets, see Groupon countdowns all from inside your email - the possibilities are endless! The world (or your inbox to be accurate) is your oyster. Enjoy!

If you run into any problems or would like to give us feedback, simply email us or check out our forums.

TheNextWeb just wrote about PowerInbox!

2011-03-08T18:25:00.001-05:00

Great write up from Brad McCarthy @ TheNextWeb. Check it out here.

PowerInbox just got Scobelized!

2011-02-26T21:17:00.002-05:00

Robert Scoble just posted the video we recorded today of PowerInbox. This is the first public appearance of PowerInbox. Exciting!

Check out the whole post here.

PowerInbox is now in Private Alpha

2011-02-26T21:12:00.002-05:00

Apps in your email. Collaborative Editing in your email.

Sign up to get on the invite list @ powerinbox.com

Welcome to PowerInbox!

2011-01-05T18:43:00.001-05:00

We are pleased to announce the official launch of PowerInbox.

Our goal with PowerInbox is to make email better.

Email is great for simple back and forth messages, but starts to break down when we start collaborating on the same email thread. For example, fixing typos, adding comments, editing text are just some of the scenarios where our intent is collaborate by “editing” the email. However, we are forced to use “reply all” since that is all that email offers. Unfortunately, hitting “reply all” leads to stale information fragmented across multiple emails and of course more email clutter.

PowerInbox solves these problems by letting you edit an email after it has been sent. PowerInbox works with your existing email account in your existing email app, so there is nothing new to sign up for and no new email app to learn.

And it’s very simple to use, just hit the new “Edit” button:

PowerInbox lets you edit the emails in live mode (real-time edits like Google Docs or Google Wave) or in draft mode (compose and send). Multiple people can collaborate on the same email and can even mix live and draft editing.

Instead of multiple emails back and forth, you now have one email that's always upto date. Our handy "Replay" feature lets you review all edits made to the email so you don’t lose any information:

And of course, we are backwards compatible with existing (legacy) email systems that don't have PowerInbox yet, so everyone is still in the loop:

Today's launch brings PowerInbox to Outlook 2010 and 2007. In the future, we will be bringing PowerInbox to Gmail and other legacy email systems.

So please give PowerInbox (Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010) a try and please let us know what you think (powerinbox@iorevolution.com) or if you have any feature requests.

Welcome to PowerInbox.