Last week I got an invite for a new service called Zenbe which provides web based email, calendar, file storage and Zen Pages. I’ve tried it out and here’s my take on it so far.

Email
The email piece of ZenBe will look and act very familiar for GMail users. It has much of the same functionality and structure with a few differences in how things are named (tags instead of labels, rules instead of filters). Start composing a new message and it will bring up a list of matching names from your address book as you type the To address. Overall a very solid webmail app that is pretty even with GMail and I’d say better than Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and any other major webmail provider. Like GMail you can use ZenBe to check other pop accounts, but it only works with pop accounts and if you want to use that feature with Yahoo! then you have to have a Yahoo Plus account which charges for features nearly every other email provider gives for free. Obviously that’s Yahoo’s bad policy, not ZenBe’s.

Any webmail app relies heavily on a good address book or contact list. ZenBe’s address book resides on the right side of the screen (and can be hidden) and by itself is nice. It has all the functionality you would want or expect from an address book including picture, birthday, email, address and phone information with multiple entries allowed for all of those except birthday and picture. They even include an option to import contact information from GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail or an Outlook csv file which is nice. The problem (at least with the GMail import) is that it only imports the name and the primary email address. I have contacts in GMail that have 3 email addresses, 1 street address, 2 phone numbers and a picture, but nothing beyond their name and primary email got imported into ZenBe. Hopefully that’s a bug that will be fixed soon because an import is not very useful if it only pulls partial information.

Another problem is the apparent slow caching. If I send an email to my GMail address it shows up within seconds. When I send one to my ZenBe address it takes several minutes and several refreshes before it shows up. It only appears to be an issue when receiving email, however, because when I sent an email from ZenBe it showed up in GMail within a few seconds.

One final cool feature is that you can add tags to emails before you send them rather than having to send the email then go tag it later like in GMail. The problem is that it doesn’t appear to work right now. Clicking on the Add Tag button brings up a list of your tags (and lets you add a new tag), but after making your selection(s) clicking the Tag Message button brings up an error that says: “We’ve encountered an unxepected error. If it continues to happen, please click the refresh button in your browser.” If you try again the Tag Message button simply does nothing.

Calendar
The calendar is nicely done, again bearing a resemblance to Google Calendar, but with a couple of glaring omissions. First there is nowhere I can find to set a reminder. Adding events, especially those weeks or months in advance, is not nearly as useful if there is no mechanism for reminding you about them. Even an email reminder to your ZenBe address would be better than nothing. I can’t imagine it will be too long until this is resolved as even the most basic calendars have reminder functionality built in. Another missing feature is one that a lot of people have started taking for granted thanks to Google Maps and that’s the ability to map out the location of an event. Even the ZenPages includes a Google Maps module so ZenBe has the API, they just need to add the functionality to the calendar. Invites can be sent to any email address and show up with the event details and RSVP buttons of Yes, No and Maybe. The answer is then reflected in the calendar event to keep track of how everyone responded.

Files

One of the coolest features of ZenBe is the file storage. There are plenty of companies offering online storage these days, but none that I’m aware of that offer storage integrated with email, calendar, etc. There are hacks to use GMail’s extra space as file storage, but that’s sketchy at best and possible to be blocked at any time. Since ZenBe comes with 4GB of space (for everything) there’s plenty that can be used for storing files. They can be used as attachments in email, shared via ZenPages or just stored so you can access them later from anywhere with an internet connection. It will even detect what type of file it is and let you organize files by type in addition to user defined tags.

Tasks
One thing sorely missing from Google’s repertoire is a way to manage tasks, but ZenBe already has that feature. On the right side of the screen along with the address book there is a tab for Tasks. You can create separate task lists so for example you could have one for your shopping list, another for tasks you need to complete at work, etc. If you enter a task on the wrong list no problem, just drag it to the correct list. You can even have a task list from a ZenPage show up in that view with your other lists. With only a task name and a date it’s certainly not a full featured task list like RememberTheMilk.com, but still a nice feature along with all the other features in ZenBe.

ZenPages
This is the unique feature that really sets ZenBe apart from GMail, Yahoo and others. A ZenPage is a central location where a group of people can share a variety of things. Documents from your Files tab (or other documents) can be posted for all to view. A discussion board can be added. Flikr photos, YouTube videos, Google Maps, Picasa Photos, Links and a list of activity (what’s been added, changed, etc) on that page can all be added. Email can be added based on tags and anyone who is also a ZenBe user can add their own related email to the page. Any page with an RSS feed can be added, although it appears to be limited to just 1 site so you couldn’t add 3 separate rss feeds that are related to your page. Finally, one of the things I was going to put on my wish list, there is a Google Chat module that you can add to the page. True I’d rather that be supported on the main email screen like it is in GMail, and I don’t see the usefulness of having it on a ZenPage, but at least there is someway to waste time at work using ZenBe

Other Features
Also on the right hand side of the screen (with the address book and tasks) is a daily agenda that shows any events from your calendar for the current date which is pretty handy. The final feature is for Facebook users which I am not so I can’t really review that. According to the site it will let you change your facebook status message, see updates from your friends and get notified of new messages and friend requests. Personally I’d rather see a Twitter or FriendFeed tab instead of Facebook, but I think I’m one of the few people who refuses to signup. I hardly ever login to my MySpace page so why would I want a MySpace 2.0 page?

Final Verdict
Overall I’m very impressed with ZenBe. It boasts features that other newcomers took months or years to implement (or still don’t have) and does it in a nicely integrated package. The tab system for switching between Mail, ZenPages, Calendar and Files is much better than opening separate windows for everything Google related. Aside from the few bugs I mentioned above there’s not really anything negative I can say about ZenBe as far as it’s product.

The question is can it lure users away from GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. With all of its features I’d say it has a better chance than any other site, but there are issues that could prevent that from happening. One thing that absolutely has to work seamlessly and perfectly is importing mail, contacts and calendar items from other sites. As I mentioned above the GMail contacts import needs some work before it will be completely useful. I haven’t tried to import calendar items yet, but at least there appears to be a way to do it.

The biggest problem converting people (especially GMail users) to ZenBe will be caused by 2 things. First, emails are not grouped into conversations in ZenBe. Yes we all got along just fine without that feature before GMail came along, but there are a lot of people (myself included) who are VERY used to that and don’t want to go back to the old way where every message is separate. Secondly (and probably the biggest reason), email accounts these days are tied to other services. My single Google login doesn’t just give me email, it’s my ticket to my calendar, IM client, RSS feed reader, Bookmarks, News, Finance, Photos and more. There is something to be said for how much easier it makes life to login 1 time and have access to most of the things you access online, not to mention that they usually play well together since they’re all from the same company.

Of course some people will not switch simply because they don’t want a new email address. Our email addresses are used for so many different online sites and services that changing that requires more updates than moving to a new physical address. There is 1 thing that ZenBe can do to make me switch immediately though. Add sync support for Windows Mobile (IMAP email, calendar, tasks and contacts). Hopefully they won’t listen to the fanbois online (or Google) who want you to believe that Apple has taken over the mobile phone market in less than a year. There are several (think double digits) million more Windows Mobile devices than there are iphones so please don’t buy into the hype and start with the smallest mobile market share when developing new features.