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AwayFind Insights

Product Blog » We just launched on Google Apps Marketplace, and with a new Gmail Gadget!May 18

This is kind of huge.  With a few clicks, AwayFind can be available for any domain that’s powered by Google Apps.  Then we’ll be at the bottom of every Gmail message as a gadget!

AwayFind-Contextual-Gadget-sample

This is news for Google, too—since they just made these “contextual gadgets” available a couple minutes ago.   See their writeup on the Google Enterprise Blog and on the Google Apps Developer Blog.

Install it for your domain here:

image

Here’s a quick overview of how it works:

There’s actually a lot of things that we’ve launched with today’s updates, and many that we’ll be finishing up in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned for another post on those soon.

And, since we actually were one of just a handful of companies to launch Contextual Gadgets, we put together a fancy professional press release, check it:

AwayFind App and Contextual Gadget Now Available on the Google Apps Marketplace
May 18, 2010 — AwayFind.com announced today that it has launched its GmailTM contextual gadget on the Google Apps Marketplace™, Google’s online storefront for web apps that integrate with Google Apps™. AwayFind is the a service designed to address email interruptions, which cost employees as much as 3 hours per day (according to Basex, 2007). AwayFind notifies you of urgent email messages when they arrive via SMS, IM, Twitter, or even a phone call. With its new Gmail contextual gadget, users can configure AwayFind alerts directly within a Gmail message.

“Even if your inbox is closed, there are a few messages you need to receive right away.  AwayFind automatically notifies you when there’s an urgent message, so if you have a meeting with an important partner and they email you at the last minute, AwayFind will immediately send you a text message,” says Jared Goralnick, Founder and CEO of AwayFind.
With AwayFind you can close your inbox much of the day to eliminate its constant stream of interruptions. With the Gmail contextual gadget, it takes just a few seconds to configure notifications for urgent messages without having to leave your inbox.  As part of the Google Apps Marketplace, millions of IT administrators can install AwayFind throughout their organizations in just a few clicks.

To install the AwayFind app and Gmail contextual gadget for your Google AppsTM domain, visit https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=4925+9424300573372110328

The Google Apps Marketplace makes it easy for more than 2 million Google Apps customers to discover, purchase and deploy integrated business applications and related professional services. By integrating with user account and application data stored in Google Apps, these cloud applications provide a simpler user experience, increase business efficiency, and reduce administrative overhead. To learn more, visit google.com/appsmarketplace.

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Google, Google Apps Marketplace, Google Apps and Gmail are trademarks of Google Inc.

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Product Blog » AwayFind is now in Public Beta!Apr 17

We’re excited to announce that AwayFind is now available without a waitlist!  Yep, Public Beta is NOW!  We’ve made the announcement today in Mountain View, CA while demo’ing at Under The Radar.

While we’ve received a lot of press lately and announced quite a few features, today we want to let more people in to try it.  We’ve spent a lot of time listening to our users, and we have a ways to go, but we want to give more people an opportunity to escape their inbox.

As a bit of context to how we got here, here’s a slide from today’s event:

image

As you can see, AwayFind spun out of a consulting business, and was in fact a side project in response to the needs of both our team and our customers. In 2008, we released a small product (AwayFind 1.0) that got a bit of attention and made us some money.  But then we spent some time listening and starting working on a completely new version of AwayFind, which we placed into private beta in November 2009.

In the process of all this, AwayFind went from being a “small thing on the side” from the consulting business to the sole focus of our team.

If you’ve been waiting to try AwayFind, you can signup today.

We’d love your feedback and would be happy to answer any questions—you can email jared at awayfind or Tweet us @awayfind.

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Product Blog » Updates: Firefox & Chrome plug-ins for Gmail users, oAuth, and Super Fun Press!Apr 12

The last few weeks have been exciting here at AwayFind,  We released a number of crucial features for Gmail users, had some fantastic coverage, and got a LOT of new users.

AwayFind  ♥ Gmail

Our goal is to help everyone escape their inboxes, but rather than provide basic support to a lot of providers, we want to provide a phenomenal experience for the platforms we support.  And in the last few weeks we’ve made that clear with our deep support for Gmail (and we’ve got more coming, too).

Check out our AwayFind for Gmail plug-in, which is available as either a Firefox Add-on or Chrome Extension:

Existing AwayFind Users – Install It From Here

The other big Gmail improvement is that we now support Gmail (IMAP) via oAuth—which is a fancy way of saying we can connect to your Gmail account without storing your email password.  It makes for a faster setup process, more security (we won’t request or store your Gmail password), and no need for you to update AwayFind if you change your password in Gmail.

Upgrade your Gmail Account or Add Another Here

Press ♥ AwayFind

Perhaps it’s the new features…but whatever it is, we’re thrilled that people are talking about AwayFind.  We’ve had over 130 articles about us, but in the last couple weeks we had some coverage we’re particularly proud of.

At ReadWriteWeb, Sarah Perez wrote a thorough AwayFind review.  As Sarah’s been a long time user of AwayFind (thanks!!), she did a great job examining what’s changed with AwayFind Orchant.  (Also cool: the article was syndicated in the New York Times)

While we’ve also been on some popular sites in the last couple weeks (like DownloadSquad and wwwhat’s new, a South American site which sent us hundreds of signups), our most exciting coverage was a 2-minute segment by CM&’s technology correspondent.  This story aired on a major prime time television station in Columbia, and sent us more users than any other to date.  Check it out:

We really hope these new features make a huge impact.  Thanks so much for entrusting us to keep you away from your inbox!

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Product Blog » The Core of What’s New in AwayFind OrchantMar 12

AwayFind Orchant is a completely different product than AwayFind 1.0.  I wanted to take a moment to ensure you were familiar with what’s changed and why.

We’re solving the same problem–keeping people away from email without worrying about missing anything–but our approach is completely different.  Then again, it’s exactly the approach our users asked for.  There were two things our users requested most:

  • The ability to get certain people’s messages automatically turned into alerts (SMS or otherwise)
  • More control over who received auto response messages, and how often they went out

We’ve got both of these features now, in the form of:

1. Filters

Filters monitor your email accounts for whatever or whomever you’re looking for…and then can alert you when those messages arrive.  Here’s a quick demo:

 

2. Intelligent Auto Responders

Intelligent Auto Responders allow you to send an auto response once every 180 days (or however often you’d like), rather than in response to every message you receive.  Better yet, you can set custom messages to go to specific people, and prevent some people from ever receiving an auto responder at all.  Here’s more:

 

Those are our biggest changes, and they required us to grow from a small contact form that sent you SMS’s, into an intelligent application that directly interacts with your email accounts.  In brief:

  • AwayFind 1.0 allowed others to reach you with their emergencies
  • AwayFind Orchant allows you to be reached from the people or topics that you consider to be urgent

Fortunately all of the AwayFind 1.0 features still exist so you get the best of both worlds.  But now you don’t have to worry about missing a message from your boss, family, or an important client—you get to choose what’s urgent!

Along with this, AwayFind got a redesign and a bunch of new contact methods—we can now notify people anywhere in the world through SMS, Voice, IM, or Twitter DM.

We’ve seen that these changes have made a huge impact on our thousands of customers.  But many more helpful features will be coming soon!

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