[FR] - CP - DLM 3.0, projet de recherche lauréat de l’Appel à Projet Web Innovant du Secrétariat d’État à l’Économie Numérique présente sa feuille

DLM 3.0, Demain Le Mail, projet de recherche lauréat de l’Appel à Projet Web Innovant du Secrétariat d’État à l’Économie Numérique

présente sa feuille de route

Alinto, Kwaga, le LIRIS et l’APCE, membres du consortium DLM3.0, s’associent pour étudier et répondre aux usages du mail en entreprise.

Paris, Lyon le 18 février 2010 - Sélectionné par la DGCIS (Ministère de l’Économie), le consortium DLM 3.0, composé d’Alinto, Kwaga, le LIRIS et l’APCE, a pour objectif de créer les outils logiciels qui rendront au mail ses caractéristiques d’outil de productivité et notamment faciliteront le tri, l’organisation, le traitement et la gestion des emails.

La conception de ces logiciels sera guidée, d’une part, par une étude qualitative détaillée menée auprès d’utilisateurs et par l’analyse des usages en fonction de la nature des messages, d’autre part. Ce dernier volet sera piloté par la mise en œuvre de technologies sémantiques d’analyse du langage naturel.

Un des fondamentaux du consortium est d’améliorer l’utilisation du mail en entreprise, sans ajouter de nouveaux outils à ceux déjà en place. Les composants logiciels attendus seront intégrés, de façon transparente pour les utilisateurs, au système de gestion de mail en place.

Pour Gaëlle Recourcé, Directeur Scientifique de Kwaga : « L’utilisation du mail en entreprise a déjà fait l’objet de nombreuses études quantitatives qui démontrent la perte de productivité des utilisateurs, liée à l’explosion du volume des messages à traiter. Sans présumer des résultats de l’étude qualitative, un des axes sur lesquels l’analyse sémantique pourrait conduire nos travaux serait la suggestion de destinataires ou de VIP, basée sur les centres d’intérêt identifiés. La notion de communautés professionnelles pourrait s’enrichir en fonction du contenu des échanges. »

Jalons

• Q1-Q2 2010 : Étude qualitative d’usage et définition des besoins
• Q3 2010 – Q1 2011 : Expérimentation de prototypes de recherche pour résoudre les problèmes observés
• Q2-Q4 2011 : Intégration et prototypage de l’ensemble des outils en une solution cohérente
• Q1 2012 : Phase de validation : test et évaluation du système par les utilisateurs de la phase initiale d’étude

Résultats attendus

• Étude quantitative détaillée des usages du mail en entreprise.
• Solution logicielle packagée prête à être intégrée au système de gestion de mail existant.
• Reversement des résultats obtenus sur chaque composant, en open source, à la communauté de recherche et notamment à la communauté UIMA qui travaille sur l’intégration des composants de traitement de la langue

Pour Philippe Gilbert, Président Fondateur d’Alinto : « Nos clients font face à l’explosion des moyens de communication : courriels, messagerie instantanée et désormais réseaux sociaux. Grâce à la convergence, l’email est devenu le carrefour des échanges au sein de l’entreprise et notre objectif est de proposer aux entreprises des outils pragmatiques et simples qui s’intègrent à tous les environnements de travail : webmail, Outlook, PDA… En complément des technologies sémantiques que nous allons déployer, l’expérience que nous avons acquise en mettant en œuvre des systèmes de messagerie complexes au sein de nombreuses organisations confèrera aux travaux du consortium DLM 3.0, les exigences de sécurité et de confidentialité qui sont fondamentales pour les entreprises. »

Pour suivre le projet DLM 3.0 et contribuer à faire évoluer cette initiative : http://www.dlm30.com

Liste des projets retenus dans le cadre de l’Appel à Projet Web Innovant : http://www.telecom.gouv.fr/rubriques-menu/soutiens-financements/programmes-nationaux/volet-numerique-du-plan-relance/resultats-deux-appels-projets/liste-projets-retenus-web-innovant-2218.html

À propos d’Alinto
Créé en janvier 2000, Alinto est l’un des principaux éditeurs et opérateurs européens de messagerie collaborative et de communications unifiées. Alinto gère plus 4000 domaines de messagerie professionnelle et plus d’un million et demi d’utilisateurs sur 5 pays.

Basé à Lyon et en Allemagne, Alinto s’appuie sur une équipe qui dispose d’une expertise dans la communication électronique depuis plus de quinze ans et conjugue une politique de recherche et développement soutenue avec un service client de haute qualité.

2010 marque les 10 ans de l’éditeur et opérateur de solutions de messagerie électronique qui a récemment reçu le prix spécial de l’innovation décerné par OSEO à l’occasion du Deloitte Technology Fast 50. Alinto s’est rapidement démarqué de par les choix stratégiques de ses fondateurs. L’innovation et la proximité ont permis de convaincre ses clients.

Avec une volonté d’innovation permanente, Alinto, fut l’un des premiers :
- à concevoir une solution de messagerie sur le mode SaaS (Software as a Service),
- à proposer un service d’accès à ses mails depuis un mobile en 2000,
- à proposer des services de Messagerie Premium et des BAL 2 Go en Europe,
- à faire lire un Agenda à un lapin (Nabaztag)…
Site web : http://www.alinto.com
Blog : http://www.demainlemail.com

À propos de Kwaga
Créé en 2008 par Philippe Laval (fondateur et ancien dirigeant de Sinequa) et une équipe d’experts et de managers expérimentés, Kwaga est l’éditeur d’un nouveau service qui rend aux utilisateurs le contrôle de leur boîte d’emails en leur en proposant des vues synthétiques et catégorisées par contenu.
Alors que les cadres sont confrontés à la surcharge de leurs messageries et perdent 20% de leur temps à gérer leurs messages emails, les utilisateurs de Kwaga gèrent mieux et plus vite leurs emails grâce à une technologie innovante de traitement du langage.
Fonctionnant aussi bien en Anglais qu’en Français et disponible pour les principaux clients de messagerie tels Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, Outlook et Thunderbird, la solution Kwaga est actuellement en version bêta privée.
Incubé à Télécom ParisTech, Kwaga valorise la recherche publique à travers un partenariat avec Alpage INRIA/Paris 7. Lauréat 2009 du Concours national d’aide à la création d’entreprises de technologies innovantes du Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, Kwaga a également été lauréat du dernier Seedcamp Paris et est soutenu par le Centre Francilien de l’Innovation et Scientipôle Initiative.
Pour plus d’infos : www.kwaga.com.

À propos du LIRIS
Le LIRIS (Laboratoire d’InfoRmatique en Image et Systèmes d’information, CNRS UMR 5205, http://liris.cnrs.fr/) est commun à l’INSA de Lyon, l’université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, l’Université Lumière Lyon 2, l’école Centrale de Lyon et le CNRS. Il comporte 92 enseignants chercheurs et 140 doctorants.
Il est structuré autour de deux départements : « Image » et « Données, Connaissances et Services ». Le département DCS est impliqué est composé de cinq équipes de recherche. Au sein de ce département, il s’agit de l’équipe Bases de Données (BD) qui prend part à ce projet. L’équipe BD regroupe 10 membres permanents (3 Professeur, 7 Maîtres de Conférences dont 1 Habilité à Diriger des Recherches) et 20 doctorants et 2 post doctorants. L’équipe centre ses activités sur trois thèmes :
- Gestion des environnements dynamiques
- Qualité, intégrité et disponibilité des données
- Sécurité et confidentialité des données et des services

L’équipe BD a organisé le congrès international VLDB (http://www.vldb2009.org/) à Lyon en 2009. VLDB est la vitrine internationale de tout ce qui se fait de mieux en recherche et développement pour la gestion des données
Pour plus d’infos : http://liris.cnrs.fr/

À propos de l’APCE
L’Agence Pour la Création d’Entreprises est le partenaire “expérimentateur” compte tenu de son expérience dans la gestion de flux d’informations
L’Agence pour la Création d’Entreprises est une association Loi 1901. Créée en 1996 à l’initiative des pouvoirs publics, l’Agence pour la création d’entreprises intervient dans le processus d’aide à la création, à la transmission et au développement des entreprises :
- à la manière d’une agence d’informations au travers de son portail internet, de ses publications et de fiches pratiques, elle assure la triple mission de promouvoir l’esprit d’initiative, d’informer sur les mesures prises en faveur de la création-transmission d’entreprises et sur les dispositifs en place aux niveaux national et local, et d’orienter les entrepreneurs dans leurs démarches,
- en support technique des réseaux d’accompagnement et des collectivités territoriales pour leur apporter la formation et les outils d’une action de terrain de qualité
- pour suivre l’évolution du processus de création d’entreprises, réaliser des études statistiques et des notes de conjoncture par secteur d’activité et bassin d’emplois, qualifier les attentes et les besoins en matière d’accompagnement,
- en réalisant toute mission ou étude et en donnant tout avis demandé par les pouvoirs publics, dans un cadre conventionnel.
Pour plus d’infos : http://www.apce.com

An hectic day

Yesterday was an hectic day for us.

First, we released our latest plugin version. This was mainly due to Gmail Greasemonkey API deprecation. It took us a full week to become mostly independent from this API. In the process, we added:

• a lot of optimizations regarding CPU and memory usages;
• automatic update of the underlying XPI - if you are not sure that you have the last version, please update a last time by clicking here. From now on, updates will be automatic;
• invoice detection;
• two new buttons :"Add to Kwaga" which add an email to your ToDo list (if it's an inbound mail) or to your Following list (if it's an outbound mail) and "Never Mind" which reset ToDo or Following status from a mail.

Then Google released Google Buzz - and we finally understood WHY the Gmail Greasemonkey API was broken and why we had to rewrite it: your Kwaga plugin will keep working even if you already have Google Buzz activated, as you can see from my own inbox. You might lose some Kwaga buttons, but be assured that they'll come back sometime today or tomorrow.

Finally, and this just a teasing, we launch our next development iteration. This will be a new way to get the Kwaga experience WITHOUT any plugin. More on this later.

Kwaga Upgrade: Now you choose which Tags to activate... helps you cope better with email overload.

Happy New Year to all of our Beta members!
To start the new year on the right foot the crew has just released a series of powerful improvements to the Kwaga plugin (automatic upgrade):

• two new buttons My Kwaga & Kwaga Help in your Gmail (replace the former Pebble),
• ability to select which tags you'd like to see in your Gmail via Settings accessed from either Kwaga.com (login link) or the My Kwaga button in Gmail,
• new Send & Follow button when you compose a new email reminds you when someone forgets to answer your email,
  
• easily perform searches of specific Kwaga tags by clicking on a list item under the My Kwaga button,
• improved help tutorials by clicking the Kwaga Help button from either Kwaga.com or within Gmail.
  
  

New Kwaga Settings Console

Did you forget me?

(Repost from my personal blog.)

This is my first post in a series entitled
"Why we are building Kwaga".

I write a lot of mail to a lot of people. And I have huge expectations. I really would like mail exchange to be more like a conversation.

However, conversations that take place in real time and real space have one big advantage: when the opposite party doesn't hear you, it's pretty obvious. No such feedback in mail. How many threads fade out from the absence of an answer from one of the members of the group?

I'm not perfect either, I certainly fail to answer my own fair share of threads. I used to "Star" threads that I really wanted to get an answer to. This didn't work so well because I often forgot to "Unstar" them once I got an answer. Also since it worked in only one direction this did not help when I was the one forgetting to answer.

So we dreamed up a new feature for Kwaga: "Send and Follow".
When I expect a reply, I use the "Send and Follow" button instead of the standard "Send" button. I can even set a time delay, would i like a reply for tomorrow or next week? That way, I can regularly review my "Followed mail" list and see which threads are lagging and need to be followed-up, confident knowing that already answered threads are automatically untagged.

As a bonus, if both my correspondent and me have installed Kwaga, I'll see all incoming emails that my colleague needs me to answer. Just like when I had a personal assistant. Neat.

This is an example of why we are building Kwaga.
And you, how do you follow-up forgotten emails and threads?

- PhL

Kwaga :: Startup Academy Paris :: Email Overload :: Video

Presentation Kwaga on Vimeo.

Neat upgrade to Kwaga Plugin! :: What's New?

Dear Beta Users,
So the Kwaga team has been asking you for feedback, sifting through hundreds of your ideas, and hard at work implementing a couple of key new features that we believe you'll find pretty fantastic.



The coolest stuff:

(1) The list of Kwaga Tags under the My Kwaga button are now links that query Gmail. Huh? In other terms, you can find all meetings, for example, that Kwaga has detected in 1-click. Refer to the PDF below to see a full list of what Kwaga automatically detects & extracts.

(2) Answer Me & Please Answer features remind you when someone has forgotten to reply to an email you consider important. This is also useful when the receiver has Kwaga installed as well, as she will see a Please Answer icon in her Gmail threadlist (inbox) until she replies.

How does the new version work? ( click on image to enlarge or download the PDF )



We'll be posting How To videos over the winter holidays, so keep checking the blog. Also, we'll be launching an important update to the Settings console for the new year (yeah!) which will let you decide which Kwaga tags to activate. Let us know what else you would like to see us do :-)

Kwaga @ Life is Better On & OpenCoffeeParis

Kwaga was selected by OpenCoffeeParis to present a 4-minute pitch at last evening's "Life is Better On" event, along with 9 super-fly startups.

The venue was a hip club in the center of Paris, near the former stock exchange, packed with 700 of the web's smartest and nicest people in attendance :-) Amongst them, Fabrice Epelboin (Read Write Web, TechTocTV), Philippe Duhamel (Ilixo), Arnaud Coulondre (AllMyApps.com ), Alexandre Guilly (mailforgood), and Kamel Zeroual (Stribe).

Was it the sheer excitement of LeWeb opening the following morning, fatigue, or the open bar? Not entirely sure but frankly few cared to listen to Orange present the latest lab projects they've been working on. With such an ominous start the organizers wisely cancelled the startups' presentations, and so we danced.

What did you miss? Take a look at slideshare:

Also, links to the 9 other winners and more on:

• Aladom , which allows you to easily find providers for housekeeping, babysitting, elderly care or other home assistance. Their blog.
• Leetchi.com a web service allowing you to create online kitties. Very useful for presents you want to co-fund with friends.
• Allmyapps provides you with the easiest way to install your PC: select your favorite application on Allmyapps' site and install them on your PC at once! Their blog.

Looking forward to Open Coffee 2010!

Kwaga :: Getting Started :: Register and Launch plugin

New York Times cites Kwaga

NYT article
Authored by Nick Bilton

"E-mail applications are essentially dumb clients. They don’t know much about you, or your e-mail, and if they do, they don’t use this data to help manage the content. There are people working on this problem and coming up with solutions like Kwaga, a semantic-language enhancement for your e-mail. "

Kwaga :: 2009 Paris Innovation Award Winner :: Video

Kwaga was recognized last evening as the most innovative service in 2009 (by the City of Paris) for its applied use of semantics in addressing email overload.

Awards ceremony took place at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie on Monday, November 30. Subtitles available in English :-)

Let us know what you'd like to see us do next.




Related articles on the Net:
Les Grands Prix de l’Innovation de la Ville de Paris récompensent la société Kwaga
Résultats du Grand Prix de l’Innovation de la Ville de Paris

Do you want to spend 3 years of your career reading unnecesary emails?

Key facts (average email user) :

• receives 20 new emails each hour, each day (excluding spam),
• forgets 18% of important emails, and reads 36% of UNimportant emails,
• and spends more than 3 years of his/her career reading unnecessary emails.

Paris-based Startup
Kwaga is simple, free, and works with Gmail to enable you to focus on essential emails and follow-through with key decisions in less clicks.

It's estimated that we will have spent 3 years of our careers reading unnecesary emails. So, what should a virtual email assistant do for you? Which "email overload" eradication feature will Kwaga implement next?

Vote and we'll strive to launch your favourite module for Gmail within the next few months.

Kwaga has developed a software-based personal assistant which helps users cope with email overload as effectively as a human assistant. The system analyzes Gmail text received by the user to extract action-relevant information including new meeting requests, tasks, emails to follow-up on, new telephone numbers.

If you have to do anything besides hit the reply button, it is an action email and the Kwaga email assistant is there to help.

Illustration: Kwaga adds a smart layer to Gmail which displays a series of clickable tags.

Kwaga Email Overload Assistant :: Interview at PayPal.

Kwaga Issue: Gmail Offline mode.

Sorry folks, the Kwaga plugin is not yet compatible with Gmail's offline feature. If you have activated the offline feature, the Kwaga plugin will not function correctly.

So please, either turn off this feature if you're not using it or delete your Kwaga plugin following these simple instructions.

We'll keep you posted when Offline compatibility is resolved :-(

Kwaga Email Assistant Basics: Using Gmail Search.

Did you know that Gmail has a very powerful built-in search engine? For more information on Gmail search parameters.

For example, if you remembered you had received an invitation to our Open Office by email and wanted to find it again, you might use the following search:

"from: kwaga label:kw-invitation after:2009/11/18 before:2009/12/30"

What is label:kw-invitation?
Well, Gmail includes the possibility to search for specific (or all) Gmail labels.

When Kwaga automatically detects Meetings, Invitations, Events, New contacts, Email confirmations, Credentials, For Your Information, Newsletters, Telephone numbers, Passwords, etc... in your emails, it tags by creating a Gmail label that starts with "kw-" and you can easily search for these types of emails.

Review our QuickSheet on Kwaga tags to see how to include Kwaga tags in your Gmail searches.

Kwaga Email Assistant Basics: Icons

Kwaga also detects little bits of valuable information,
displayed as Icons in your Inbox.

Part of a series of quick tutorials to help you get started with the Kwaga email assistant.

These "icons" are genuine Gmail labels simply displayed differently than those you might create yourself. As with any Gmail label you can easily search for all emails automatically tagged by Kwaga, such as telephone numbers by typing: label:kw-phone into the Gmail search bar.

Please click for full-screen & printable view :

Kwaga Email Assistant Basics: Automatic Tags

Part of a series of quick tutorials to help you get started with the Kwaga email assistant.

All emails, automatically tagged by Kwaga, will display a colourful & clickable rectangle in your Inbox.

These "rectangles" are genuine Gmail labels simply displayed differently than those you might create yourself. As with any Gmail label you can easily search for all emails automatically tagged by Kwaga, such as meeting requests by typing: label:kw-meeting into the Gmail search bar.

Please click for full-screen & printable view :

A Lesson on Simplicity.

As Kwaga launches the second-round of product-work, I found this inspiring TechCrunch article about Twitter and product simplicity :



"We live in an age where feature-bloat reigns supreme. Far too many startups replace the word “better” with “more.” That is to say, rather than perfecting the product they have and maintaining a singular focus on what they want to accomplish, they keep adding new features either because rivals are doing them, or because users are suggesting them. This is rarely a good idea. One great feature beats a dozen half-assed ones any day of the week. Keep it simple, stupid."

Also, Evan Williams, founder of Blogger and Twitter, explains in more detail.

[EN] Kwaga Talks about Email Overload at eBay, PayPal & Gumtree.

Thanks to Dees and Andy at eBay for organising a lovely work session on Friday. Seedcamp winners were given the unique chance to present to nearly 100 eBay employees and field questions. The subject of email overload and Kwaga captured the interest of a great number of people present and I really enjoyed having the time to discuss with everyone.

Look out for more on Heather Taylor's blog at PayPal.

[EN] Using Twitter to Create the Best Email Assistant.

Ok, so I launched our twitter feed 3 months ago thinking Twitter is perhaps a useful medium to reach new people in the world. We received pointers from friends who had tweeted before, but frankly it seemed to me more of a gimmick than truly useful.

I didn't want us to broadcast blindly and loudly about Kwaga in a "spam" like fashion. That hardly seems right for a startup striving to build goodwill and focused on solving the problem of infomania.

What would be interesting is to talk with people who have ideas on improving the email overload problem and who would want to help us create the email assistant they need. I didn't grasp how we could engage our public on Twitter in a meaningful conversation.

I "get" it now!

Thanks to Farhan Rehman and Gemma Cocker I now rather "get" it. To comprehend the sheer massive potential of Twitter I was instructed to first find the conversations on email overload already taking place. Indeed there is a very large community of people sharing their frustrations and solutions to email overload. This is just the sort of community we want to reach and the type of conversations that will help us create the most useful email assistant:

"Must deal with fantastic backlog of email. Some good stuff in there I want to respond to, but I'm caught in Overload Loop. Fixing now."

"How to Manage Email Overload with some help of your RSS Reader."

"A funny (and very true) list of tips on how to manage email and info overload."

It would also be very nice to see all our early Private Beta members on Twitter for real-time product feedback and discussions on email overload in general.

[EN] Software engineer @Gmail explains IMAP.

Kwaga would like to thank Jamie Nicolson for taking the time to write us and explain what happened the other day with Gmail IMAP:

"Unfortunately for us, the press reported the issue as our bug, when in fact we were trying to fix a bug. *sigh*, oh well. We're going to try pushing our change again at some point, but first we want to make an effort to make sure no one will be broken when we try again. It sounds like you guys fixed your code and are good to go.One way you could help us in the future would be by sending the IMAP ID command after you login (RFC 2971). This command is analogous to the user-agent string in HTTP. It lets us see which software we are talking to for a given IMAP session. This way we can keep track of which apps out there are talking to us and how they interact with our server, and we know who to contact about potential problems." - Jamie Nicolson, Software Engineer at Google