Mozilla releases Raindrop, a prototype messaging tool

Mozilla has launched a software project designed to let people better manage the voluminous stream of messages coming from sources such as Twitter and Facebook into their e-mail.

Raindrop is not another e-mail client, however, said Bryan Clark, the design lead for Mozilla messaging. Mozilla describes it as a "mini Web server" that is installed on a PC and collects conversations and messages from a variety of sources and then intelligently sorts them.

The purpose of Raindrop is to allow people to have a clearer view of the messages they're getting. It also will prevent personal messages from being obscured in an e-mail box among, for example, a morass of Facebook or Flickr notifications. It will also be able to handle notifications from YouTube, blogs and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

"E-mail was already overloaded" even before Web services such as social networks started sending updates to users, said Clark in a video posted to the Raindrop Web site.

:story: Full story: Computerworld