The information overload of e-mail is here to stay. Austin startup Boxer says it can help process the messages better.
Boxer, which recently raised $3 million in seed funding, focuses on mobile mail, the e-mail we receive through our smartphones. It makes sense, since we are now more likely to access messages via our phones than on a desktop.
“The way you do e-mail on the phone is different than on the desk,” says Andrew Eye, Boxer’s founder. “On their mobile phones they want to triage their e-mails, get rid of junk they don’t care about, and highlight things they do care about. We make those interactions easy.”
Boxer has two versions for consumers. Boxer “Lite” is a free app that will sync to the e-mail provider of your choice. For $5.99, you can download the fully leaded boxer, which works with more than one e-mail address and is compatible with Microsoft Exchange.
Eye says a key feature of Boxer is the ability to avoid using the keyboard except when absolutely necessary. Boss sends an e-mail about an update to your project? Swipe the message to the left and a menu pops up. Hit “Quick” and pre-programmed responses come up: “I’m on it and I’ll follow up shortly” or “Can you give me a little more detail?”
Other menu items include adding the e-mail to your To-do list and hitting “Like,” an all-purpose acknowledgement understood in a Facebook-dominated world, Eye says.
“The comparison is two gestures versus the 45-plus that it would take to type out the response,” he adds.
Eye says Boxer was inspired by the realization that, while desktop e-mail had evolved over the last six years with changing looks and features, e-mail portals on smartphones had not. “Boxer’s really exposed
