Bubbles enabling 'handwritten' mail on web; claims 47K users in 5 months
Bubbles, an e-mail platform that enables users to send 'handwritten and feature-packed' electronic letters via the internet, has bagged more than 47,000 users across the globe since it came out of beta in January this year, a top executive told Techcircle.in.
Owned and operated by California-based BubbleIdeas Semantic Corp., this all-new e-mail service enables users to type, write, doodle, draw, sketch, make collage and put hand-written signatures in mails and send the same even to those who don't have a Bubble ID. The firm was set up in 2011 by Arvind Nigam (CEO), an IIT Kharagpur alumnus, and Kumar Navneet (CTO), an alumnus of Delhi-based Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College.
"Bubbles is an e-mail service for the post-PC era. It brings true letter-writing experience on the web. It carries emotions across the board and helps people connect and relate to each other in textual ways," claims Nigam. "No matter how advanced the speed and semantics of the web are, we feel that a gap will always remain there if users do not have an option to write by hand."
According to the company, Bubbles is the first e-mail service to introduce electronic 'letters' (which means it is the digital version of real-life letters, handwritten by people). The company is using the cloud to store all mail messages, so that users don't have to worry about the storage capacity of their Bubble accounts. "Bubbles is kind of Evernote and Gmail smashed together," Nigam added. "One can also send one-liners using our e-mail service without opening a mail, because a user doesn't always want to write a formal electronic letter."
How it works
You can log in using your Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/
The company also claims that you will never get a spam mail as it has developed a technology to block them completely. By default, Bubbles is in private mode, but you can change the mode using settings. Inbox is the place where you receive your mails and write them as well. Letters or messages received here are totally private. In case you doodle or opt for the handwriting mode, there is an additional steganographic advantage for hidden messages. You can also go public with your mails and use the open face from where you can publish open letters and share opinions with the world.
However, unlike Gmail or other popular email services, Bubbles does not have an integrated chat. "We have just released the product and we keep adding new features. The chat feature is definitely there on our roadmap. But right now, we are focusing on building a good user base," said Nigam.
The road ahead
Bubbles founders are not looking to monetise the product either, at least for now. "It is a consumer app and there are a few ways to monetise the product. We may introduce a paid version for enterprises with additional features like official letterheads, full branding, team collaboration, etc. But we are not looking at it just now," added Nigam.
Bubbles is a pure web application and does not support mobile devices. "This product is clearly not meant for mobile devices although it currently supports iPad and Wacom Pentab," said Nigam.
According to Nigam, the e-mail market is worth $22 billion and more than 60 per cent of it contains formal mail.
(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)
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