Community & Support

Where we make ActiveInbox with you

After the Silence… A Birthday!

“Oh, *now* you want to talk!”

In the past few months we’ve been unusually, almost eerily quiet.

As lots of you have nudged Lisa & I (Andy) in email to update the blog, I’m pleased to say big things are afoot!

“Happy Birthday to Us, Happy Birthday to…”

Well not quite yet!

But the 15th September will be the SIXTH anniversary of ActiveInbox’s first donation (which came a few weeks after I first released GTDGmail as a weekend project)… and gave us our first real taste of momentum. Momentum that is about to return like never before.

We’re now a team of five based here in our community working space in Brighton (England), hopefully with a sixth on the way. Lisa is chief in charge of defending all of you (she captains support@, the forum and making sure I never overlook your requests!); Pete is the designer with a very artistic temperament (I haven’t seen him for a few weeks since I insulted his bike); Mark is doing wonders in paving the way for exciting future feature development; and Dan has just joined to help us grow faster as a company.

Some of you have been with us for years and have seen us grow, others are a bit more new to the fold. So, let me tell a bit more about us the team, how we got started and our journey to present day: “Now this is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside down”… (Another time eh Andy — Ed).

In order to grow, like any team, we need resources and investment. We are appealing to our “Active” community to help us, not with cash (but that would be great!) but most importantly with your time and your product knowledge.

Help Us Perfect ActiveInbox

We’re about to embark once more on a huge set of refinements (don’t worry, we won’t be making any dramatic changes to existing features – ActiveInbox is now a maturing product). And I say “refinements” because if anything, I want to make ActiveInbox a lighter product, not a bigger one!

I’ve synthesised all your requests from the last few years into a roadmap for the next 6-12 months of product development… And I will be regularly releasing sneak previews and beta versions here on the blog. But what we produce will not be perfect – so keep on giving us feedback as we release updates and I will use it to improve us further!

(And yes, the roadmap includes our first stab at mobile… more on that in the coming months!).

Tell Us A Story!

If you would like to help us out please let us know, if:

* You have an interesting story about how using AIB helped you on a project
* How a team member finally had a “lightbulb” moment when they you managed to persuade them to start using us. Anything really, we’re after your stories, a clear FAQ, feedback and your views on how we can help you aside from stamping out those darn bugs!!

Just email Dan (danf@activeinboxhq.com) and he will be all sweet and charming with you, as is his way.

Growing Up

Support queries, now will be answered within 24hrs unless really mission critical (like on New Years Eve last year, when I had to scramble to find a wifi connection in Berlin to fix up our servers!). It’ll always be Lisa you’re speaking to unless I manage to sneak in ahead of her :)

To keep the load down for our still tiny team, please always look at the forum first as questions may have been asked or even answered already. Plus the forum is somewhere you could help out if you want to share your knowledge and tips with other people!

I (Andy) will still be working round the clock, but tucked away out of sight in the AIB Lab, so not so much on a day to day support function. I need to put some time into pushing ActiveInbox further ready for the big news and September celebration. My most visible days will be Tuesday, when I’m most likely to be available for customer interviews (to help us improve!), and Wednesday, which is non-critical bug fixing day.

  • http://www.facebook.com/thekeyboardguy Mark Steven

    Thanks for the update – I’m really looking forward to where Active Inbox goes from here – such a great product :)  

    • http://www.activeinboxhq.com Andy Mitchell

      Mr Steven sir – so are we, there’s a real buzz in the office at what is possible with our humble foundation! I’m trying to get things launched as fast as we can.

  • http://profiles.google.com/eric.santillan Eric Santillan

    I’ve been with ActiveInbox from the start (back in the GTDGmail days), and would like to say I don’t regret ever using it. It’s now organically part of my gmail and I’m always proud when people ask me “How do you do THAT?” when I add a deadline to my email. (yes I know, will ask them to get ActiveInbox also. I don’t want to hardsell the product.)

    Congratulations Andy, Lisa, Pete, Mark, Dan and unnamed sixth member (I would say hi when you’re finally on board!)!

    • http://www.activeinboxhq.com Andy Mitchell

      Thank you Eric (I leapt onto the comments as soon as I recognised your name in my inbox – I do love our little community!) :)

  • Dale Holden

    Hi Andy (and team)

    Just like Eric I was there on week one as one of your loyal beta testers (giving you grief)
    But what a long way we have come and what a great product. I gotta say when I use Gmail away on my buisness trips of hols I feel like the programme is broken withoutmy Activeibox.

    It is one of those Extentions you just use and take for granted until you don’t hacve it. Also I cannot believe how quick the time has gone.

    Looking forward to the future and how it develops.

    Dale

  • http://profiles.google.com/susan.penter Susan Penter

    Things have come such a long way since the early days, ActiveInbox continues to be one of less than a handful of applications that I am happy to pay for. I have to totally concur with Dale that it is so easy to take the software for granted and Gmail on it’s own does indeed seem broken without it.
    I’m very much looking forward to the new developments, I was getting a little worried by the ongoing quiet. I’m sure the new offering will be gold standard!

  • Stelvio Gori

    Hi all,
    I fully second the comments below, GMail is a great product but without AIB (and yes, I started using it at GTDGmail time…) I feel uncomfortable with.
    After long time using, the main feature I can suggest is to enable AIB actions on email preview (I think it is a GLab feature: right click on the email teaser opens a preview popup from which you can archive and delete), it could further quicken email processing.

    Anyway, best regards and keep up the good work!
    Ste

  • David Mcmillan

    anybody elses gmail chat sidebar changed 

  • Cossy Rosario

    Pete Lambert, I used to like and dislike AIB. Like it for the way it helped my email workflow and even my non email tasks for which I used the email to self feature. But I disliked it  for the clunkiness of the HAB bar at the top of the page which just took too much space, pushing the actual email to the bottom half of the screen. So I often disabled AIB, only to miss its advantages and enabled it again. This disable-enable cycle went on repeating every few weeks, until there was a long period of disabled AIB. When I read the last AIB Blogpost in my inbox, I decided to enable it again to see if anything had changed. IT’S NO LONGER CLUNKY! I like its look now, and its functionality. I think the improved look owes a good deal to the designer, which is why I’ve addressed this comment specifically to you, Pete. Thanks for streamlining AIB.

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