Threadsy: Email, Facebook, and Twitter fixed

Image via CrunchBase

Some time ago I signed up for a beta for Threadsy after I heard it mentioned somewhere. Well this morning I was invited to the Beta and thought I would jot down a few first impressions.

What is Threadsy?  Well, you know how it is a hassle to have your Gmail window/or email client open, and your Facebook window open, and your Twitter client open, and you find yourself trying to track and/or conduct conversations across all three? Threadsy allows you to merge all three into one stream/window.

This is kinda cool.  It adds Facebook updates and Twitter replies/direct-messages into your mail, or allows you to watch each one separately without changing windows or programs.  In short, providing one interface to rule them all.  And, yes it is all in the interface.

If something like Threadsy is going to work, you have to provide an interface that makes more sense than the existing services own interfaces.  And it has to be said that any improvement on Facebook's interface is going to be welcome, but for Gmail the web site is pretty good, and for Twitter there is a number of desktop clients that fix it's janky web interface.

The interface here is good.  I dropped into Chrome and turned Threadsy into the app and started to play.  Did I mention that setup was easy?  It is so easy it is almost to the point of silliness.  Instead of asking you all the questions, Threadsy seems to just go ahead and get your details from the services you attach to it.  You just give it your Gmail, Facebook and Twitter details (and yes I know how insecure that sounds) and it creates a mash-up, if you will.

The interface isn't crowded with options, but offers a neat main inbox style, with the sidebar for extra info and your Twitter/Facebook feed.  There are echoes of the Gmail interface in the way Threadsy expands messages, but the rest of the system feels new and early adopter fresh.

It is Beta so I'm not going to bag it out, but before you leap, there are couple of things that I hope are on the books for updates, or of course I haven't found them yet. The Gmail account I'm playing with is IMAP and I can't find a way to look at the folders, or find the emails that Threadsy allows you to archive, outside of Threadsy.  But really, they are more power-user issues, and if you're just looking for a easy way to consolidate your feeds, this is it.

The Twitter client is good, with some neat features.  Not quite as rich as your Tweetdecks, but a good looking first step.  And the Facebook integration fixes many of the problems I have with the Facebook website.

So overall it is a great Beta product with lots of potential.  For me, if they add in Gcal support I could almost do away with Thunderbird, and all my social, email, message and feed problems would be solved.

Please check it out, and watch this space as they fill out the Beta.

Jason

...if it ain't Broken, combine it.