from Hacker News

Conspire Analyses Email to Be Your Next Networking Tool

by pauljm on 10/10/14, 1:23 PM with 8 comments

  • by cscharenberg on 10/10/14, 3:46 PM

    I am amazed at how stupid these applications are. I just signed into Conspire again (tried it a year or more ago) and it sent me an update email like this: "You are losing touch with [X] and [Y]! Email them now". You mean my mother and my father-in-law? Both of which I have specifically linked as such in my Google Contacts? Thanks for that advice.

    Same goes with these other services: Rapportive, Nimble, Mingly, Xobni, etc. They apply superficial statistics and send a daily alert that some person I exchanged one email with last year should be contacted. How about reminding me to keep in touch with colleagues from my previous job? Or a colleague leaves my company...therefore in 2 months send an email saying hello. Those would be useful reminders.

    I predicted everything Conspire was going to send me today: stats on how quickly I respond to emails, % responded to, message volume. Who cares?? It's just comfort stats: feels interesting but actually isn't.

    I am desperate for a semi-intelligent personal contact management system. Or at least a dumb one with a really great editing interface. The level of intelligence in these app is so slow I actually wish it were zero so they would stay out of my way!

  • by richthegeek on 10/10/14, 1:54 PM

    Isn't this inherently unprivate? There's a big gap between "I have emailed (or received email from) this person at least once" and "I speak to this person regularly".

    Such a relationship is revealed by this software where you might not want it to be.

    Consider you are speaking to a recruiter who just happens to be your most reliable connection between one of your contact and the contacts of that recruiter. In this case, it looks like your relationship will be revealed.

    Then again, it seems like LinkedIn has never shied away from being sleazy and careless with your data so anyone using this will be expecting a lack of care anyway.

  • by Xeoncross on 10/10/14, 2:04 PM

    1. Privacy-oriented people like myself will never connect to this service so they can, ahem, responsibly handle my email.

    2. The recruiters/founders who know me will (because it looks like it will really help them).

    3. I'm in the system now.

    4. go func() { for { Repeat 2 } } // concurrency so we can continue...

    5. My network is in the system (and tied to me)

  • by AnonymousRant on 10/10/14, 6:42 PM

    Is it really necessary for this service to have the ability to:

    "View, manage, and permanently delete your mail in Gmail Create, update, and delete labels Compose and send new email"

    I'm sincerely asking - it's not a rhetorical question. Does Gmail not offer more granular permissions than this?

    Also: the other commenter's point re unexpected privacy leaks is a good one. I don't think I have any secrets that would be revealed through my correspondence habits, but I do so much email, I could be wrong. Do I have the ability to delete my info after I've registered if I don't like the service?

    It's an interesting idea, and I'd like to give it a try, but without a little more assurance that I can trust them with access to my email, it's not worth the risk.

  • by dandrewsen on 10/10/14, 2:22 PM

    Conspire has become my go-to networking tool. It uses your real working relationships, so it's much more accurate and useful than LinkedIn. I've used it to make introductions, and to seek introductions, and it's incredibly powerful.