Wow, has it really been a year since we launched into beta at TechCrunch50 in September, 2008?

It was a lot of fun to attend TechCrunch50 2009 as an exhibitor and attendee this time, and not have the pressure of presenting. It's still an incredible networking event and I really enjoy seeing the company pitches. TechCrunch was very generous to invite their alumni companies back and to give us space in the demo pit.

The skinny

So what's happened since then? We came out of beta and launched three new products – our Premium service, Gmail integration, and Yahoo! Mail integration. Partnering with Yahoo! Mail has helped us to reach a critical milestone of 100,000 users! We have a strong upgrade rate to the Premium service and a very high retention rate.

What do we need to improve? We've had some growing pains as we've scaled the service. We are implementing some major database improvements this week that we think will address a problem that made our website slow to use and also slowed down the frequency at which we check Yahoo! Mail and Gmail accounts. We also need to improve the way our IMAP server works and fix some bugs that have been lingering.

1. We need to make things faster.
2. We need to make things more reliable.

You can expect to see some big improvements in October!

SXSW

Well, we launched to the public at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) in March 2009 and at the same time released our Gmail Organizer. SXSW was a LOT of fun! If you didn’t come by our booth to hang out with the OtherInbox Team, try to win a mailbox full of cash, or get the chance to take a picture with Mr. Spam, you missed out! We had a blast spreading the excitement about our launch; we even have the pictures to prove it! Most importantly, we enjoyed meeting many of our beta users in person!

Yahoo! Mail Automatic Organizer

Yahoo! Mail is the largest email provider in the world and has always been an innovator – so of course we had our eye on them. When Yahoo! introduced their Applications platform, we jumped at the opportunity and fortunately they were already familiar with us because of TechCrunch50. In June we launched the Automatic Organizer beta in Yahoo! Mail and in September opened it up to every Yahoo! Mail user in the United States.

Click here to try it out on your Yahoo! Mail account!

Gmail

We released our Gmail Organizer in March and then got straight to work on the Yahoo! Mail Organizer. Now we're taking another look at Gmail and identifying how we can improve it. Please read this blog post for more details and add your comments!

Giving back to our Community

We're proud to live in Austin, Texas and we give back to our community by volunteering and supporting local causes. This year we helped the Austin Entrepreneur's Foundation to paint a local school and packed bags at Meals on Wheels. We also host the local Austin on Rails user group meetings at our office once a month.

What a team. We're hiring!

None of these successes would be possible without an amazing team.  The OtherInbox Team is a group of talented individuals who are dedicated, high-spirited, and enjoy working together. They are absolute rockstars. We all work hard but we have fun doing it. We are also looking to expand, so if you know anyone who enjoys a fun and flexible startup environment and values a sense of community, check out the open job positions!

What's next?

• We're working to make our Yahoo! Mail Automatic Organizer faster and smarter
• We're upgrading our premium website to make it faster
• We're adding more calendar functionality
• We're looking at how we might integrate with Google Wave
• What else? Give us your suggestion here

Thank you

I want to sincerely say thank you for believing in OtherInbox and supporting us over the past year. A year from now I hope to be celebrating our 1 million user milestone!

Joshua Baer
Founder & CEO

Congratulations to our “Mailbox Full of Cash” winners, Nita and Lois!
We had the pleasure of meeting them at our office this week and took a
few pictures with them. They are a wonderful and deserving Mother and
Daughter team! Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest.
 

Come out and enjoy a day at Austin’s door64 Tech Fair Thursday April
30th.  OtherInbox will have a booth set up and will be giving out some
T-Shirts and demos of our newest features.  This is a first-of-a-kind
grassroots event with a great potential for networking and being
involved in what the Austin Business Journal recently quoted as “The
No.1 city for job growth potential”.

The door64 Tech Fair will be at the Goodwill Center located at 1015
Norwood Park Boulevard, Austin, Texas 78753 on Thursday April 30th,
from 11am until 4pm.  There will be panel discussions and even a
party following the Tech Fair.  For more information and to RSVP for this event please, visit http://door64.com/techfair.

If you follow us on twitter, please @otherinbox and let us know you
will be there. We would love for some of our current users to show
their support by wearing an OIB T-Shirt and would like some of you to
come by our booth to speak to potential new OIB users. Please help us get the word out there about this event and RT this blog.

If you are attending and would like to speak at our booth or help us demo OtherInbox, please email door64[at]peeps.oib.com.

A couple weeks ago, our co-founder Mike Subelsky demonstrated OtherInbox and talked about the new features we are rolling out at SXSW at a really cool event, TECHcocktail DC #4 in Washington, D.C. Mike met several OIB users who had some great things to say about OtherInbox, including one who came up to him at a coffee shop before the event because he saw Mike’s OtherInbox T-shirt.

The crowd was very lively and included several people who had already tried the service and liked it. Everyone seemed excited about Gmail and calendar integration. The TECHcocktail team also interviewed me live on Ustream which was fun. Thanks to Jimmy Gardner, Eric Olson, and Frank Gruber for putting on the event and inviting us to participate!
–Mike

The people at TECH cocktail posted a ton of pictures of the event, caught Mike’s winning smile, and conducted this interview with Mike.

The OtherInbox office is currently covered in T-Shirts! I can’t find Joshua Baer under them all! Okay, so that might be a little dramatic, but we do have a ton of OtherInbox T-Shirts to give away. We don’t have enough to give every single fan, so here are some ways you can get yours before they run out:

• If you agree to wear the OtherInbox T-Shirt during SXSWi, you can stop by booth number 213 or 312 to get your free OIB T.
• If you come by Dave & Buster’s in Austin tonight, you can get your free OIB T.
• If you write a blog post about your experience with OtherInbox (good or bad) by 3/09/09 and send it to us, you could get a free OIB T.
• If you do a screencast or video, you could get a free OIB T.
• If you are a fan of OtherInbox on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, you might be selected for a free OIB T.
• If your name is Joshua Baer, you get a lifetime of free OIB T-Shirts.

Sound good?

Going to SXSW in Austin this March 13-16th? Stop by the OtherInbox booth and sign up for an OtherInbox account that will come in handy during your SXSWi experience. There will be a lot of things to try to sign up for, so it will be a great time to use your OtherInbox for all that SXSW bacn.

OtherInbox will be located at two booths, so come check us out at numbers 213 or 312. In addition to giving you the freedom of signing up for anything and EVERYTHING at SXSW, you might also walk away with a mailbox full of cash valued at $1,000! We will have a lot of fun activities and some really cool T-Shirts as well. Keep an eye out for our Mr. Spam, and take your picture with him to increase your chances at winning that mailbox full of cash!

See you there!

You might have already heard the exciting news: OtherInbox will be at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas from March 14-16. What you probably may want to know more about is the mailbox full of $1,000 cash we will be giving away!

The first step towards winning the $1,000 is to stop by OtherInbox’s booth at SXSWi and sign up for your own OtherInbox account. No purchase is necessary, however, you must be in the OtherInbox database to win. You can increase your chances of winning and number of entries into the contest, by taking your picture with OtherInbox’s trusty superhero, Mr. Spam. He will be carrying a camera and raffle tickets on him while walking around the convention site as he pleases. You must successfully have your picture taken with Mr. Spam in order to obtain your extra entries where you will then write down your OtherInbox email address on the back.

There are several other ways to increase your odds of winning. If you are lucky enough to bring your own camera, take a picture of yourself with Mr. Spam, then TwitPic it @OtherInbox. If you don’t own a camera, you can also wear your OIB T-shirt during SXSW to receive 5 extra entries.

At the end of SXSW, we will draw one lucky winner and send them a message in their OtherInbox congratulating them on winning the Mailbox Full of Cash, aka $1,000. If they do not respond to the email within 7 business days, another winner will be drawn.

You could be the winner! Come out to SXSW Interactive and see what OtherInbox is all about.

For more information, please email sxsw[at]Lchaney.oib.com

This is Joshua Baer, the founder of OtherInbox. Sorry I haven’t written an update in a while — Leah, Hoon, Caroline, and Erica have been hard at work here while Mike has been working with the product team and I’ve been working on the launch and some exciting partnerships that we have lined up for later in 2009. I also had my first child over the past few months!

We’re looking forward to seeing y’all here in Austin for the annual South by Southwest Interactive, Film and Music festivals March 13-22, 2009. We’ll be opening OtherInbox up to the public, releasing Gmail and calendar integration, presenting at numerous events, throwing a party, and generally just hanging out with all of you who can make it to Austin!

While you’re at the show, stop by our booth and say hi! Come meet Leah, Hoon, myself and other members of the OtherInbox team. We’ll be giving demos, talking about what’s in store for 2009, and giving away a mailbox full of $1,000 in cash!!!

We’re showing some extra love to our Austin peeps by organizing an OtherInbox meetup at Dave and Busters next Tuesday, March 3 at 6:30pm. We’re still a startup, so don’t expect an extravagant affair — but you can meet members of the OtherInbox team and get the inside scoop on our plans for SXSW and the public launch. If that’s not enough, one lucky winner will walk away that evening with a Gold badge to attend the SXSW Interactive and Film festivals worth $695!

Please RSVP for the party so we can plan accordingly!

We’ll be kicking off SXSW at the City of Austin Interactive Showcase on Friday from 5pm-7pm at Fogo de Chao. OtherInbox will be presenting along with 24 other local Austin companies at this exclusive, invitation-only event. This will be particularly fun for me because in addition to representing OtherInbox, I am an investor in 3 other companies presenting at the showcase – Bazaarvoice, B-Side Entertainment and Onespot. We’re honored to be included!

If things go as planned, it will be hard to miss us on the SXSW tradeshow floor this year. We have a double-sized booth that will be staffed by Leah, Hoon, Caroline, Erica, Mike, myself and other members of the team. Our booth has 2 numbers, so look for 213 or 312 at the end of one of the rows. We’ll be giving live demos, signing up new users, and talking about what’s in store for 2009. I have a personal goal to meet as many OtherInbox users at SXSW as possible – if you see me walking around or at the booth please say hi and introduce yourself in person!

We need your help to make SXSW as huge success and spread the word about OtherInbox! There are 2 things you can do to help if you’ll be at SXSW:

1. Sign up to spend 1 hour at the booth with us so that you can share your experiences with other prospective users
2. Wear an OtherInbox t-shirt at SXSW to show your support.

If you’re at SXSW, you probably will notice Mr. Spam. Don’t worry, you’ll recognize him from the cape! Take your picture with Mr. Spam and email it to us to get a chance at the mailbox full of $1,000 in cash. To get an extra chance at the $1,000 and updates on Mr. Spam sightings, follow Mr. Spam on Twitter.

To save some time in the comments, I will answer three popular questions about Mr. Spam now:

1. No, I’m not Mr. Spam.
2. Yes, Mr. Spam really has a cape.
3. Yes, Mr. Spam really has super-powers.

Come hear OtherInbox co-founder Mike Subelsky’s presentation about Scaling Rails Applications in the Cloud. Skeptics argue that Ruby-on-Rails “can’t scale”. In this talk, Mike proves them wrong by demonstrating how cloud computing technologies have changed the game, enabling developers to use the expressiveness of Ruby and Rails to build high-performance applications that scale easily. Includes case study and live scaling demo.

Scaling Rails Applications in the Cloud
Saturday, March 14th
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Room Hilton C

If you liked Mike’s presentation, you’ll want to head straight from there to my presentation titled, Should I Build My Startup on Ruby on Rails? You’ve heard Ruby on Rails is the hottest new technology for developing web applications. You’ve also heard of concerns about scalability and hiring talent. How do you separate the facts from the hype? Hear the business perspective on why to consider Ruby on Rails now and why you might want to wait and see. Get ready for a head-to-head comparison with PHP, Java and .NET!

Should I Build My Startup on Ruby on Rails?
Saturday, March 14th
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Room Hilton D

On Sunday night I’ll be honored as one of the top 25 people in social media in Texas at the Texas Social Media Awards at Ballet Austin. This event will attract the who’s-who in social media and the proceeds go towards a great cause – the Sunshine Camps for high-potential, low-income kids. You can still buy a ticket for $12.

During the day on Monday we’ll be presenting the new, public release of OtherInbox to Guy Kawasaki, Brad King, and others at the SXSW BizSpark Accelerator along with 7 other companies in the Innovative Web Technologies category. I’ll be showing off OtherInbox for Gmail and also our new calendar integration. Please attend the event and wear your OtherInbox t-shirt to show your support!

We’re wrapping up SXSW with a party, of course! OtherInbox is teaming up with FiveRuns to sponsors the SXSW Austin on Rails Party at Buffalo Billiards on Monday night from 6pm-9pm. This is always one of the best parties of the conference! In addition to beer, music, and pool tables there will be other games and lots of interesting geeks to talk to. Of course, Mr. Spam will be there taking pictures. Please RSVP if you plan on coming so that your name will be on the guest list and you’ll get free drink tickets. There are already hundreds of people who have RSVP’d so you’d better do it soon to make sure you get a spot.

Even if you can’t attend the party, please become a fan of OtherInbox on Facebook.

We use a relatively new JavaScript framework to power OtherInbox message viewing inside your web browser called SproutCore. I’ve begun giving a series of SproutCore talks, explaining how the framework allows you to build client-server web applications, and what this means for the future of the web. I’ll be giving this talk and doing SproutCore demos at Austin on Rails on 11/25/08.

Bryan Liles was good enough to take a video of my talk at Baltimore on Rails in October. Check it out below:

The slides I use in the beginning are on slideshare.

If you haven’t seen the OtherInbox demo in person, here is your chance! Come to the Innotech conference Beta Summit in Austin to meet me and see the demo in person. We’re the first company presenting at 11 AM and we will have a booth in the exhibitor space.

Please stop by and say hi! If you’re an OtherInbox user, I’d love to meet you and hear about how you are using OtherInbox. If you have heard about OtherInbox and are skeptical, this is a great opportunity to get your questions answered and talk to other users.