Web Worker Daily

How many times have you wished for a simple and easy way to create and export email lists by mining your email inbox?

Wait no more! Clear Context, a San Francisco-based start-up that makes an in-box management plug-in for Microsoft Outlook has come up with a new product called, Contact Exporter for Outlook. Of course you will need their inbox management plug-in, a for-pay product.

The Contact Exporter is a beta feature in ClearContext IMS v4 that lets you create and export groups of email addresses found in messages stored in the Outlook folders you select.

What it essentially does is create a list of email addresses found in messages from a set of folders users choose. And these can be used to create distribution lists. You can create say, an email list for a birthday invite and export the list in the CSV format. You can export files and import them into any application that will allow you to import CSV files. Facebook and Socialzr are two such web services. I think this export feature is quite handy. If you want to know more, check out their website.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is about to announce an online storage space. Some call it GDrive, and I see it as a vital component of Google Computing Cloud. Regardless, instead of obsessing over the minutiae, I want to know what you folks specifically think about it. Take this poll and let us know.

Dimdim, a Burlington, MA.-based web meeting services startup, wants to take on Cisco Systems’ (CSCO) WebEx and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Placeware by emphasizing simplicity and ease of use. The company, which is backed by investors including Draper Richards, Index Ventures and Nexus Capital India, launches its service today at DEMOfall 2007. Co-founded by Computer Associates alumni DD Ganguly and Prakash Khot, Dimdim has so far raised $2.5 million. Continue Reading.

You know a web 2.0 application is hitting an upward inflection point when your inbox starts filling up with the likes of “Joe Doe wants to add you as a friend on VagueSter.” Over the last few months, it’s been Facebook’s turn.

The site’s rise in traffic is in no small part due to developers being enabled to deliver their apps using the Facebook API. Here is how you can use Amazon Web Services to scale your Facebook Apps. Continue Reading.

* FoundRead: Founders at VMWare and XenSource all hit paydirt this week — but whom would you rather be? Read more »
* Earth2Tech: How the Physical Distribution of Digital Goods Impacts the Environment. Read more »
* Future of Software: The Road Ahead for Browsing. Read more »
* NewTeeVee: Truveo relaunches. Its pretty good. Read more »
* GigaOM: And Broadband growth slows, and may lead to a price war and that’s a good thing for consumers. Read more »

Skype, one of the primary means of communication for web workers has been on the fritz for past few hours, possibly because of some software upgrades from Microsoft.

Let this be a reminder that Skype is not quite your phone company replacement. This must have impacted thousands (if not millions) of companies and web workers who lost money and productivity.

Are you being impacted by this outage? Is your business suffering as a result? Share your story with others.

Google, this morning spent $625 million in cash to buy Postini, a start-up that provides encryption and security as a hosted service. Google believes this deal is further testimony about its serious commitment to providing hosted apps to businesses, especially small and medium sized businesses.

Google Apps are being used by 1,000 small businesses, universities and also there is an interest from large companies. On their Google Apps blog, Rajen Sheth, Product Manager, Google Apps writes:

For organizations that are not yet ready to jump full force into hosted applications, Postini’s proven messaging security and corporate compliance management solutions are a great place to start.

That addresses at least some of my own personal concerns about the security of using these applications, but you think you are ready to take a chance on Google Apps for running your business.

Additional Reading: GigaOM: Google buys Postini, How High Can Google Go?

Are you sick and tired of getting SMS messages from your Twitter accounts - especially at odd times of the night, like when you are sleeping? Some of us are actually quite annoyed at getting stuck with big bills because of these SMS messages.

There are three easy ways to go mobile with Twitter:

1. Use the Twitter mobile: If your phone has a mobile browser, you can go to http://m.twitter.com and you are good to go. I am not sure if everyone will be happy with the experience, but I am not that thrilled with the UI. This option is especially not good for people who don’t own the so-called smart phones, and don’t want to pay for flat rate Internet data plans. (via)

2. Flurry+RSS=Twitter Magic: Sign-up for Flurry, a mobile mail client/service. You can download the Flurry client on your phone seconds after you sign-up. Flurry, which started out as a service that would let you check e-mail on your plain vanilla phone, has recently added a feature that allows you to add RSS feeds and read them on your mobile phone.

Add RSS feeds generated by the Twitter accounts of your friends. The best part - you don’t have to pay for anything - it’s free. And if you want to Twitter what’s on your mind, just use SMS… sparingly if you can.

3. FreeRSS Reader: Most high-end Nokia phones are now shipping with a built in RSS reader, and you can bypass using Flurry and add Twitter feeds of your friends to the built-in RSS reader. It is one easy way to keep up with what your pals are twittering about - only this time the SMS messages don’t interrupt you. Check the feeds when you feel like it.

Others can try similar RSS readers, though they are going to cost you some cash. Freerange offers one, so does Newsgator (as long as you use their online service.)