Friday, August 12, 2005
Webmail.us expands online services
The Blacksburg company introduced Webmail Lite and plans to add an RSS reader to its full service.
The latest from The Ticker blog
Webmail.us has added a couple of new features to its e-mail service. One adds function, the other subtracts cost.
The Blacksburg company introduced Webmail Lite, a free Web-based e-mail and RSS reader it hopes will attract people to its Webmail service. And next week it will integrate an RSS reader into its full Webmail client designed for small and medium-sized businesses.
Webmail Lite will be free and ad-free, according to Pat Matthews, chief executive officer for Webmail.us. It isn't an e-mail account like Google's Gmail or Yahoo Mail - rather, it allows you to access your e-mail accounts when you have Web access but not your own computer - at an Internet cafe or a friend's house, for example.
"There are still millions of business e-mail users throughout the world who either don't have a Web mail interface where they can check their mail, or don't have a very good one," said Matthews, whose company was founded in 1999 and now employs 28 people.
Matthews' plan: Give users free access to his product, gain some visibility, and maybe get a customer for the full Webmail.us service.
"We'll allow people to use our interface free of charge, and who knows, maybe five years from now when they're looking to upgrade their e-mail service they'll turn to us," he said.
Besides reading e-mail, Webmail Lite also integrates RSS feeds - a feature soon to be added to the full Webmail product.
RSS, which stands for Real Simple Syndication, is a way for Web users to automatically get any new content put on their favorite sites. RSS has become popular because of blogs, which are updated often - maybe several times a day.
Bloggers and Web-site owners can create RSS "feeds" that alert users to new content. Having an RSS reader means those users get their favorite sites' new content without having to visit them one at a time.
"We believe in the future of RSS," Matthews said. Adding it to his company's software "is actually a move where we're anticipating a need," he explained.
He hopes to introduce people to the power of RSS by making it simple. Most RSS readers are separate programs with their own learning curve; users need to know how to find and subscribe to feeds. Webmail is integrating it into e-mail to flatten that curve.
"We felt we had a unique opportunity to make RSS work just like e-mail," Matthews said. "Everybody knows how to use e-mail."
