Feature
So many clouds, so little time. A new, free personal cloud application from Kitedesk is hoping to help users integrate what it calls “cloud-flipping” between various repositories of online information.
The application, also called KiteDesk and released in public beta by a company of the same name, allows users to view messages, contacts, calendar events and documents from social media services such as Facebook and Twitter -- as well as from cloud services Google Apps and Dropbox -- as customized news feeds.
Integrating All Your Data Feeds
KiteDeskers can also drill down to events or other details, such as Facebook posts from a specific client, and then create new, customized streams for that particular thread of information. The beta is intended for viewing on laptops and desktops, and a mobile device-optimized version is expected to be released soon.
The app helps deal with what KiteDesk describes as a lack of integration between data feeds, disconnected user experiences and frequent context switches.
Jack Kennedy, founder and CEO of Kitedesk, said in statement that cloud-based services and public APIs are a “huge opportunity” to provide personalized access to cloud-centered information. “When I look at my calendar, I want to see more than my next event,” he said. Kennedy also wants to see emails that were sent to and from event attendees, shared files connected to the event, and more -- without having to open different apps and conduct a variety of searches.
Filtered Streams Keep Information Organized
The Tampa, Florida-based company gives the use case of a freelance writer who might have both personal and a business email accounts at Gmail, uses Google Drive for submitting expense reports and has Dropbox for transferring story photos. Additionally, the writer maintains Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote her writing practice, as well as personal accounts at each of those social networking sites. KiteDesk enables the writer to extract the information from each account into project-, person- or time-related streams.
In order to facilitate person-related information, KiteDesk has integrated with FullContact, a provider of contact consolidation and management APIs. Because KiteDesk automatically links contacts’ email addresses with their social profiles, a user can click the “from” link in an email and see a stream of messages, social media postings, files and other documents or communications from that individual. Custom streams can also be created through rules and tags that filter content according to a given project or other condition.
