Fleep, the business messenger service developed by former Skype engineers in Estonia, has just brought out Fleep ID, which integrates emails, chats and messaging, even with those outside the Fleep network.
Your Fleep ID is essentially your profile, your email address or your chat name. By using the one ID, you can send emails to people within the Fleep network, or beyond.
When people from outside Fleep email you back, you receive it within the Fleep service, meaning that, in theory, you can control all your cyber communiqués in one place. Indeed, in a way it’s mirroring Skype’s original target of replacing landline phone use with a high-standard online alternative.
“We originally saw email integration as just a means of adding non-Fleep users into Fleep conversations,” said Fleep CEO Henn Ruukel, a former Skype employee.
“Then more and more users came to us asking how they could forward their existing email accounts to Fleep and give up on email overall, so we realised we had to accelerate our email integration.”
“Launching our own ID is an important milestone for Fleep,” said Ruukel. “We are not just building another internal team tool, another HipChat or Slack, that doesn’t interest us. Instead we are on a mission to build a truly viable alternative to email conversations. We now have the capability to make that happen for our users.”
Skype’s influence in Fleep doesn’t end with Ruukel, with one of it’s better-known investors, Jaan Tallinn, a founder of the web-based phone network.
“There are many great tools for internal business messaging, but not for external communication – email remains the lowest common denominator that people fall back on,” says Talllinn.
“Due to its compatibility with email Fleep can change that, it can give people a more sophisticated option and be the next-generation messenger. The launch of Fleep ID is the next stage of the technology’s development as the modern alternative to email.”
