Kids,

WTF! You need more tools for silly old Outlook? It bugs me to see joksters like “Boxbe”, “ClearContext” and “SendShield” get some serious marketing cred on a “popular” blog like GigaOM. Seriously, were the GigaOMers paid to write about this crap?

As if Outlook isn’t slow enough or courted enough by these little bastards, we continue to get hammered by these guys. Seriously, someone is actually funding email tools. All three websites look like the same, looking like they’ve just fed off each other’s energies or lack thereof. OK, let’s go through them shall we, class?

Boxbe lets you “easily create an email guest list so that you can make sure you receive email messages from people who matter to you — friends, family, co-workers and even entire domains” … duh! It also “basically creates a Boxbe-folder, which allows you to carefully sift through everything, and classify it as you deem fit” … duh again! What, you want us to actually do work? Actually create an email guest list? Like I have nothing else to do. Tell me what YOU are going to do for my inbox spam clutter. Sounds like a bunch of crap for a scrappydoo startup trying to tackle spam. Spam is not going to go away people, just like how you can never get rid of those teleannoyers.

ClearContext “has developed an “inbox management” add-on that has a more project-centric view of your inbox and automatically helps you keep track of specific projects and related items such as emails, to-dos and calendar items in a highly automated manner. There is an interesting feature in this software: colleague spam.” They think you’re stupid. Really. I already keep track of my projects, to-dos and calendar items – yeah, they’re called reminders.

I’m not going to say much about SendShield. If you’re too damn stupid or lazy, and believe me, so many clients and colleagues send me documents with embarassing crap (and tracked changes and comments too) that you first of all don’t deserve to email me or anyone else. How moronic must you be to not double check your work – and SendShield is laughing in one’s face everytime someone uses it.

Remember, there is a little too much bullshit out there and a little too many eager-beavers like GigaOm who love to market crap just because they can. I ain’t buying any of these losertools because I know I’m a little too smart to think I need this crap.