Mozilla Demoes Raindrop, Thunderbird's Answer To Google Wave

Mozilla Foundation’s Thunderbird team has reportedly been working on a new software tool that intends to bring various communication channels, including email, Facebook, as well as Twitter, onto a single interface with the built-in capability to sort out the important messages for the users.

With the new initiative, Mozilla seems to have emulated the much vaunted Google Wave, the only apparent difference that the Wave has been regarded as “a product, platform, and protocol”, while Raindrop is simply a product and a platform.

Available only in the form of development code from Mozilla, Raindrop intends to help users better organise the messaging they already receive from a wide range of sources.

The development team mentioned in a blog post about the technology: “Raindrop is an effort that starts by trying to understand today's Web of conversations, and aims to design an interface that helps people get a handle on their digital world”.

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In addition to separating the important messages from the routine ones, the new software also has the feature to automatically identify messages from email lists as well as from various sources, like Facebook or Amazon, that send a number of updates, and filing them properly.

Raindrop is a web application, instead of downloadable software, and henceforth available to all users having modern browsers that support Open Web technologies. 

Our Comments
Now this going to be quite interesting given the fact that Mozilla is a partner of Google and the latter actually finances Mozilla. We're slightly skeptical about the whole unified inbox theory and this could give rise to even more "noise" overall. For now and for the overwhelming majority of users, keeping things separate might be a better solution.

Related Links
Mozilla tries to build the ultimate in-box: Raindrop
(CNet)

New Mozilla mailbox apes Google Wave
(Mirror.co.uk)

Mozilla storms email chaos with Raindrop
(ZDNet)

Mozilla Labs opens umbrella with Raindrop prototype
(The Register)

Mozilla Unveils Raindrop Messaging Dashboard
(Information Week)