Wall Post: Have You Heard the Rumor about Facebook’s Email Facelift?
By: Amy Dugdale | Posted: 2010-02-08If you’re like me, you probably send the majority of your personal correspondence using a service such as Yahoo! Mail or Gmail. While I love Facebook, if I’ve got someone’s email address and I know it’s right – I’ll send it via email rather than sending a message through Facebook. Why? Well actually, for all the reasons TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington mentions in his Friday post – “Facebook's Project Titan: A Full Featured Webmail Product.”
According to Arrington, I’m not alone in my dislike for the Facebook messaging app (while I will say that when I don’t have an email address for a friend it is a lifesaver) – deleting old messages takes forever, among my other complaints. But apparently that’s all about to change. Arrington reports that Facebook is working on their “Gmail killer” a.k.a. Project Titan. Rumor has it that this new version will be full POP/IMAP support, which means we’ll be able to have an email account name like amyd@facebook.com with access to email through clients such as Microsoft Outlook. Pretty cool.
While I agree with Arrington that it may not be a true “Gmail killer,” I still applaud Facebook’s efforts to up their game in the email dept.
Will Microblogging Surpass Email?
By: Dean Nicolls | Posted: 2010-02-03
In a recent Economic Times’ article, Gartner predicted that by 2014, social networking services will replace email as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications. The research firm also said that nearly half of the companies globally will start using microblogging streams like Twitter in two years.
Clearly, social media can play a larger role within most organizations since it is an effective means of communicating more immediate information like status updates and your whereabouts.
Add to this, recent research, suggests that workers may be better served if they use social networking and instant messaging to remain in close contact with one another. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and IBM investigated the online activities (including e-mail, social networking, and instant messaging) of 2,600 anonymous IBM employees. From the research, they concluded that those who remain in close contact with their superiors generate, on average, over $600 more revenue a month than those who perform their work without frequently checking in with higher-ups. The report stated that the employees "would be rendered less effective without a clear direction." Go figure.
If you ask me -- email, instant messages and microblogging will all happily co-exist (as each serves a distinct role) – but these new social media channels will not necessarily replace or reduce the importance of email. I think a more likely scenario is that many of these social features will become part of your email experience. Check out Nick’s blog post from last October where he touched on the same themes involving email’s (premature) imminent demise.
Given that Microsoft, Google and a cadre of other heavy-hitters are investing billions in unified communications we think email will continue to reign king for some time – though it will evolve into a much more integrated experience, encompassing social media.
At LiveOffice, we embrace these new technologies and will continue to find simple and practical ways to archive these new message streams since so much business intelligence resides there – whether it be within a tweet, blog post, IM or plain ole email message.
LiveOffice Hits 10,000 Client Milestone
By: Nick Mehta | Posted: 2010-01-27
I’ll admit I never saw the movie 10,000 BC. While the tagline (“The Legend,” “The Battle,” “The First Hero”) is irresistible and though I’m a sucker for Roland Emmerich apocalypse movies (see Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and the coup-de-gras 2012), somehow I missed it.
But 10,000 is a big number at LiveOffice this month because we’re proud to announce that we now have 10,000 clients for our cloud-based message archiving and management business.
In many ways, 10,000 is an arbitrary milestone that’s a vestige of our decimal system and the fact that we have 10 fingers.
However, 10,000 is significant in several ways:
- It shows the increasing acceptance of cloud computing for businesses in general.
- It shows the realization by many of our clients that email archiving is a natural application to start with in terms of testing out the cloud, given the ever-growing storage involved, the complexity of archiving and discovery and the potential cost savings from a cloud approach.
- It shows the trust our clients have placed in our solution.
We owe this big milestone to our clients. Hopefully we won’t be chased by woolly mammoths any time soon.
What’s Your E-Discovery IQ?
By: Amy Dugdale | Posted: 2010-01-13If the newly-formed, non-profit Organization of Legal Professionals (OLP) has anything to say about it, those of us that work in e-discovery may soon know. According to a recent Wisconsin Law Journal article, the OLP is currently working to create "a certification exam on ‘core competencies' of e-discovery, including data collection, ethical considerations and an understanding of the 2006 changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure [FRCP]." The exam is aimed at non-attorneys such as paralegals, IT vendors and consultants because they are the ones most often involved in the early stages of e-discovery.
However, the plan for this new exam is not without its detractors. Some in the legal industry believe such a certification could arm folks with a false sense of knowledge and security when it comes to e-discovery and the responsibilities it carries.
While I can't speak on behalf of paralegals, I will say that from the vendor perspective, I think it makes sense to carry such a certification as a way of proving that our solution is up to the task.
Cloud Computing Drives Increasing Capacities in United Kingdom Data Centers
By: Joe Diamond | Posted: 2010-01-08In an interesting survey conducted by United Kingdom-based Telehouse, 31 percent of respondents indicated that cloud computing is driving an increased use of data center capacity. With Gartner forecasting that the cloud computing market could reach a global value of $150 billion by 2013, Telehouse found that more than 80 percent of respondents predicted that their data center requirements will continue to grow in the coming years.
As legal requirements in the United Kingdom (and the United States alike) continue to expand, so does the amount of data businesses are required to retain for electronic discovery and potential litigation. In addition, according to a study by leading market intelligence firm IDC, email and electronic documents are a primary factor for the increase in the amount of data stored on servers - which happens to be located within data centers.
Michelle Reid, director of sales and marketing for Telehouse, comments:
"The results of our survey indicate that demand for data centre capacity will continue to increase over the next five years, fuelled by SaaS and cloud computing, but we should not underestimate the future impact of governance and the pressure it will put on capacity, too."
We couldn't agree more. As our lives become ever more digital both professionally and personally, our reliance on data centers is only going to increase and it's inevitable that data stores will continue to grow with it. We're watching this trend evolve first hand as more organizations move away from on-premise email archiving solutions in order to take advantage of our hosted archiving's unlimited storage and retention.
TweetBeep: Email Still Reigns Supreme
By: Amy Dugdale | Posted: 2010-01-06First things first - happy 2010 to all our readers!
Without question, Twitter was a big topic of conversation and debate in 2009. Late last year, a WSJ writer published an article on "Why Email No Longer Rules." Over 200 folks commented on the article and many declared their continued allegiance to email. Osterman Research even rang in with survey results that revealed that 94% of respondents believe email is still their most valuable tool for getting work done. Add me to the hand raisers on that one - do you know how I monitor Twitter? I get TweetBeeps emailed to me - this method also ensures that I can go into my archive and search for old tweets in my Personal Archive folder whenever I want.
What's my point here? I'll cut to the chase. Sometimes curiosity gets the better of us around here and with 2009 coming to a close, we decided to do our own informal research on email vs. Twitter. Our research uncovered an interesting fact - guess what folks tweet about on a regular basis? Email. Yup, that's right. When you get right down to it, people have a relationship with email - sometimes they love it, sometimes they hate it, but at the very root - they still NEED it and tweet about it.
Without further ado, here are our picks for the top 10 email-related tweets last month:
1. zappify: first gmail is down, then they're taking down the bay bridge... what next?
2. cdbnyc: No, but seriously work email. I will kill you if you freeze. KILL YOU. I want to finish & go home, not sit here waiting for you to function.
3. GordonJewett: Got the nicest email I've ever received today. Should help offset the angry emails from clients 
4. invig: Deleted an email (to trash), tried to undo the delete (from trash), exchange makes the email disappear. Good work Microsoft.
5. FawnDoo: Ah, Outlook. You're showing me my inbox, I ask to see the sent items folder. It's only fair that you crash at my unreasonable demand.
6. nilicule: At least I've narrowed down the reason for my system crashes: pressing 'reply' in Outlook.
7. linuxchiq: How should i deal with email overload? One email at a time? Declare bankruptcy? I hate email. =(
8. Toberina: Do they know its Christmas? My email server clearly does as it just decided to stop working. Aaahh!
9. Lesilieburleigh: Ok, I went 4 days without email and thought it was liberating. Today my server is down and I am having a panic attack!
10. VeronicaLudwig: Is gmail down for anyone else or do they just hate me again today?
How the grinch stole my heart: Happy holidays
By: Nick Mehta | Posted: 2009-12-24I am the biggest sucker for the holidays you'll ever meet. I love everything about the season - from cheesy holiday songs to sappy holiday movies to the love that we see all around us. Not to mention lots of football!
In that spirit, I would like to thank all of the members of our LiveOffice "family" that have supported us this year:
- Most importantly, thank you to our clients, who partner with us, give us their trust and help us to evolve.
- Thank you too to our partners across the world who helped us to grow so much this year.
- Thank you to our vendors and suppliers who allow us to deliver and improve our services for our clients.
- Thank you to our investors and board members, whose advice has helped us thrive this year, despite the global challenges.
- Thank you to our employees, whose dedication and passion is inspirational to me.
- Finally, thank you to all of the families of our LiveOffice family, without whose support none of this would be possible.
And as a true holiday sap, I am excited to have my daughter finally at the age (3 1/2 now and nicknamed "The Chief") where she can enjoy some of the holidays traditions with me.
In particular, we started watching all of my favorite holiday movies together, including A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
It seems The Chief has fallen in love with the Grinch, going from running out the room the first time he came on the screen to now wanting to watch it literally every day. As I told my friend, I love watching The Grinch once a year but at viewing number 15, it gets a little repetitive. 
That being said, my wife astutely observed that The Grinch probably captures the essence of what is amazing about the holidays better than any other movie or song.
"Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer.
Cheer to all Whos far and near.
Christmas Day is in our grasp so long as we have hands to clasp.
Christmas Day will always be just as long as we have we.
Welcome Christmas while we stand.
Heart to heart and hand in hand."
Well said, Dr. Seuss.
Happy holidays to you and your loved ones!
White House Email – The Sequel
By: Amy Dugdale | Posted: 2009-12-14Several outlets reported today that 22 million missing emails from the Bush administration have been found. Computer technicians have spent the last several months searching for the messages. Interestingly, it now seems that the messages were originally "mislabeled and effectively lost."
Being that I work at an email archiving company, that last statement is the equivalent of nails on a chalk board. This is exactly the reason organizations need an archiving solution - 1) since all messages are indexed and stored, it doesn't matter how they are labeled since you are able to quickly search the entire archive based on keywords and then filter down to the needle in the haystack 2) messages can be easily tagged and labeled (if you so desire) in the archive so that they are quickly recoverable at any time.
I blogged on this one back in May and this is just the latest in the controversy surrounding "the failure by the Bush White House to install a properly working electronic record keeping system." Stay tuned for the threequel.
Plan On Sending That Nasty Email? Prepare to be Fined
By: Joe Diamond | Posted: 2009-12-02When Judas Priest released their Breaking the Law single in 1980, they couldn't have possibly envisioned that sending a nasty email would eventually become a viable song verse. Then again, email, at the time, was still in its infancy.
You can, apparently, be convicted of a crime for sending someone a nasty email. Just ask Darren Drahota, a college student who was charged with disturbing the peace and fined $250 in Lancaster County for sending abusive emails to his former political science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Bill Avery, the recipient of Drahota's emails and now a Nebraska State Senator (Lincoln), contacted the police back in 2006. Nebraska Assistant Attorney General George R. Love referred to the emails as "profane, indecent and abusive." He added, "In no sense is that type of language protected speech."
Now it's up to the Nebraska Supreme Court to make a decision in a hearing later this week. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA and a prominent blogger, is representing Drahota pro bono.
Sheesh. You should see my inbox. It's got flaming emails aplenty. I need new friends. At least, now, I can threaten them with legal recourse.
Oops, They Did It Again … Or Did They?
By: Stephanie O'Neill | Posted: 2009-12-01Have you heard the one about the couple who crashed President Obama's first state dinner at the White House? Sorry, there's not really a punch line - at least not yet. But I have to say, I find it extremely hard to believe anyone, no matter who they are, could successfully crash an event at the White House - at least not without insider help. I've actually been in a room with a former president (I imagine the security is much tighter for a sitting president), where the Secret Service outnumbered the guests 2:1 (well, it seemed like it), and those guys are serious business. There's no way they'd let someone slip through the cracks because it was a rainy evening. Seriously, what PR pro came up with that excuse?
Now you might be wondering what the point is, especially since I am writing a software-as-a-service blog post. As I have been watching this story unfold in the media with a lot of speculation, I have been waiting with bated breath for the big "E" to surface - email. Much to my glee, it did last night, and I can't wait until that evidence comes to light.
I've said it more than once, and here I am saying it again: we live in an electronic age, and email will come back to bite you. It remains to be seen whether Tareq and Michaele Salahi, senior Pentagon official Michele Jones, the Secret Service or someone else is to blame for this apparent security breach, but yet again, email appears to be the smoking gun. And if the powers that be at the White House and Pentagon were using a cloud-based email archiving solution, this he said, she said case could have been put to rest before we finished digesting our Thanksgiving dinners.
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