Part of a relatively new generation of advanced webmail services, Zenbe (site | ESG database) has got a lot going for it: an intuitive layout, social network integration, innovative webmail features, a calendar, a handy list-maker, and a community workspace called Shareflow that could give Google Wave a run for its money. It aims to be an all-in-one solution to your online needs.
There’s a lot to love about Zenbe, but is it enough to justify paying a monthly fee, particularly knowing that most of the services that it integrates are themselves free? With a heap of ingenious features, remarkably few negative issues, the answer for a lot of people out there may be a resounding “yes”.
First Impression
Zenbe offers three pricing plans: Value ($5.99/month), Standard ($8.99/month), and Premium ($12.99/month). The Value option gets you 5GB of storage and basic spam-blocking and antivirus protection, while the Standard option bumps the storage up to 10GB and includes advanced spam filtering and antivirus, and the option to use your own domain name. Premium offers the same features as Standard, but doubles the storage to 20GB.They are currently offering a 30-day free trial of any membership.
After reviewing the three levels of membership, I determined the best value to be Standard. After inputting my payment information (required even during the free trial) and selecting a username and password, I imported all of my email account information (email is still sent to any other email clients you have, Zenbe just takes a copy), and my address book. I set up a few quick mail rules, and created a couple of inbox folders. All of this took me less than five minutes and was the easiest thing I did all day.
The Layout
What makes Zenbe stand out from other online email services is its ability to put all of the tools and services you use daily right under your fingertips. The layout consists of a left sidebar, a center area with tabs running along the top for main content, and a right sidebar with tabs. The center area tabs are Mail, Shareflow, Calendar, and Files, and the right sidebar tabs are Agenda, Address Book, Lists, and two optional tabs: Facebook and Twitter. The layout is simple, intuitive, and aesthetically pleasing.
Webmail
Aside from the ease of consolidating all of your email addresses in one place, Zenbe also has a few innovations on the webmail front. Your inbox can be viewed in two different ways: traditional view and conversation view. Those who are familiar with Gmail will recognize conversation view (where emails between you and the same sender that all have the same subject are grouped together), but I think having the option to look at your inbox in traditional view helps me when attempting to locate a particular email. Gmail doesn’t give you this option.
Browsing webmail is the first place I noticed Zenbe’s inline document viewer. Hovering over an attachment icon brings up a thumbnail of the picture or document type and a few options, one of which is “View”. Clicking “view” brings up the document inside a new browser window. MS Word Documents, Powerpoint presentations, PDFs, and .PNG files, are all viewable much quicker than it takes to open the program in which the file is meant to be opened. I’ve yet to be sent an attachment I couldn’t view from within Zenbe.
A spam filter and virus quarantine area are grouped together in a pop-up window along with “junk” and “delivered items” tabs. The spam-blocker may be a little overzealous, but whitelisting a sender is quick and painless. I like the fact that I can actually see which messages may contain viruses so I can reply to the sender, who may not be aware they are sending out malicious messages.
Files
Simply put, the Files tab takes every email attachment or Shareflow file and groups them together in one place. It’s unbelievably handy and such a simple solution to a problem I have faced at least once a week since I started using email.
Calendar
Works just like it should: appointments can be added and removed with minimum hassle, events can be set to span several days, and recurring events can be set to happen every day, week, month, or year. You can create different calendars for business, recreation, sports, etc.
There is no direct sync to an iPhone or BlackBerry. When asked about this Zenbe told us that you can publish any Zenbe calendar as an iCal feed, which you can then pull into iCal on the Mac or Outlook on the PC with the right plugins. Then you can sync from there in turn. Still, not as handy as a direct integration.
Your Zenbe calendar can be viewed on the right sidebar as well, which is handy for when you need to add events straight from an email or from Shareflow. Speaking of which…
Shareflow
Shareflow is an invite-only community workspace where a group of people can share ideas along a common thread. This thread, called a Flow, can be centered on a comment, an event, or an uploaded document or file. Files can be shared, documents can be collaborated on and reposted, and users can participate as needed. It takes numerous conversations out of your inbox and groups them together in a searchable format. It is the best parts of email, chat, and social networking, all rolled into one.
It’s also got some stiff competition from (as of the moment unreleased to the public) Google Wave, which is essentially the same thing, but Wave has an open-source aspect added to it, whereas Shareflow is closed-source. Google has always encouraged users to develop plug-ins and gadgets and in therein lays Google’s strength. By letting users figure out how best to use a service or application, Google allows it to evolve, to change to suit the needs of the users and becomes something unexpectedly brilliant. Shareflow will have to do quite a bit of legwork to keep competitive.
Is Shareflow worth a try? Definitely, especially considering you can sign up for it completely free, as a standalone service, without a paid Zenbe webmail account. Possibly the best thing that Shareflow has going for it right now is that, unlike Google Wave, it’s available right now.
As for having to choose between the two, you may never need to: the Zenbe team has recently told users that they will be looking for a way to integrate with Google Wave in the future, importing Waves as Flows and exporting Flows as Waves.
The Sidebar
Probably my favorite part of Zenbe is the right-hand sidebar. Agenda lets me input events into my calendar without having to leave the email message I’m composing or the Shareflow project in which I’m working. The address book is handy and available even when I’m not perusing my email.
I’m a habitual list maker. Zenbe Lists is a great way for me to keep all my lists organized. You can collaborate on a list with other people and drag and drop items between lists. Got an iPhone? You can download the Zenbe Lists app for your iPhone ($2.99) and sync it. If you own an iPhone, I would consider it a must-have. What’s even better is that the web version of Zenbe Lists is another stand-alone service available for free, just like Shareflow.
Having Twitter and Facebook tabs on the sidebar simply saves me from having those two tabs open on my browser all the time. Facebook only lets you see the most recent status update for your friends, while Twitter has just a few more available features, like the ability to DM and retweet. The interface with both of these social networking sites is adequate, but just barely. The focus is more on sending your own updates rather than reading everyone else’s.
The Bottom Line
Zenbe offers quite a lot for a low monthly fee, but there is definitely room for improvement. While Zenbe does provide POP3 and IMAP support for accessing your email via PDA or your regular email client, there is currently no support for directly syncing your calendar with your iPhone or BlackBerry, which is disappointing. Also right now there is no support for Google Chat/Voice, nor for Orkut. An RSS reader would be very welcome, as well as a way to post from the sidebar to a WordPress or Blogger blog would also be great, but I’m not holding my breath.
Even so (and especially considering the 30-day free trial) I would recommend trying it out. It does so many things well that it’s easy to forget the things that it doesn’t do so great. Shareflow works how it should, the webmail offers some great features, and the calendar may actually prevent me from forgetting my best friend’s birthday again.
I’ve realized while trying out Zenbe that when all of the different services that I need are grouped together on one page, that I’m more likely to actually use them to better my own life. Instead of writing a paper list and shoving it in a drawer, I can write if in Zenbe Lists and sync it to my wife’s iPhone. Instead of trying to remember a friend’s bridal shower is in two weeks, I can just input it into the calendar because I already practically have it open in front of me. Since I’ve been using Zenbe, I’ve been Twittering more, updating my Facebook status regularly, and spending less time searching through my inbox for elusive attachments. This, to me, is definitely worth the monthly fee.
[...] You can help by utilizing an intelligent spam-filtering application such as Mailwasher or Spambully or by switching to a webmail service that includes a built-in spam-blocker, such as Gmail or Zenbe (which we reviewed here). [...]