Everybody's Everywhere Everythings

It's always exciting to come across a new tool but every so often one appears that you genuinely think ‘ooh that's an amazing idea' and that's just what happened to me yesterday with Rapportive and Gist. I'm not sure if I'm behind the times or that they not been promoted very well but the concept of having a person's social media and other information displayed alongside email is new to me. From a little bit of research into it, they seem to be tools that have really come the fore in 2010, perhaps because Outlook has a new social connector feature in Windows 2010, but Gist was founded as a company two years ago. As an aside, it seems that Windows needs some improving and Gist is the most innovative and forward thinking tool.

Rapportive only works in conjunction with Googlemail, which I use for personal communication, but this device is going to be more useful for me in the work place where, like most people, I use Outlook. Gist works for Gmail too but there are plug ins available for Outlook and Lotus Notes, plus they are also prepared for iPhone and Android usage - and if that wasn't enough you can use the tool as a piece of hosted web software, which I suspect is where it all started.

I downloaded Raportive for my Googlemail and signed up to the Gist web and Outlook versions so I can compare their functions but as I'm only on day one, I don't have any great learnings to share just yet. Rapportive is pretty clear-cut and gives you a small section to the right of the email window. On the web, Gist pulls together all of the contacts you tell it to, from emails, databases and social media sites before aggregating everybody's everywhere everythings into one neat profile space. Within Outlook it shows me the profile of the person whose email is selected in a side pane.

Obviously I haven't had chance to really play around with either yet but I'm very excited about what information I am going to be able to see, how it's going to save me time and especially how it will help me do my job better. For me, seeing news, blogs, posts and updates about a person as well as the company they work for is a labour saving device if ever I saw one. However, I think I've spotted a glaringly obvious drawback, which may be surmountable but I haven't delved enough yet - if the person's various accounts are set up with a different email to the one they are emailing you on then I don't think they will be displayed in the Outlook pane. I will keep you updated...

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