A brand new networking app desires to comb by way of folks’s inboxes and inform them who they misplaced contact with in the course of the pandemic, The Put up has realized.
Upstream Reconnect, a brand new service from skilled networking service Upstream, will work by analyzing customers’ Gmail and Google calendar information. If Reconnect finds {that a} person used to often speak to somebody however they haven’t spoken shortly, the app will ship the person a reminder to achieve out.
“Irrespective of how exhausting you strive, you’ll be able to’t sustain with everybody you need to,” Upstream founder Alex Taub instructed The Put up. “You kind of want a pc mind to come back in and assist.”
Upstream payments itself as a competitor to LinkedIn within the enterprise networking area and launched final 12 months in the course of the pandemic, making a reputation for itself as a platform for digital skilled occasions.
However because the world reopens and would-be networkers discover themselves extra inclined to spend their evenings at bars or film theaters than video chatting with their colleagues, Upstream desires to department into providers that aren’t tied to particular on-line occasions.
The primary Reconnect report customers obtain will inform them who they’ve contact with since coronavirus shutdowns hit the US and Europe in March 2020. After that, they may obtain weekly experiences.
The function will work by analyzing e mail metadata — like when and the way regularly emails have been despatched and acquired — not by taking a look at their precise content material, in line with the corporate.
“We’re very privateness aware, so we don’t ask for the content material of your emails,” Taub stated. “We don’t know the topic line, we don’t know the physique, we don’t know what you’re saying.”
Because the app will be unable to distinguish between skilled and private contacts, it might probably put customers in awkward conditions by telling them to achieve out to ex-lovers or lifeless family members.
To handle this situation, Reconnect will let customers flag folks they don’t need to be reminded about, Taub stated.
Reconnect has opened a public waitlist and can enable about 100 folks begin utilizing the function in July as soon as they safe vital permissions from Google, Taub stated. The function will grow to be extra extensively accessible later this 12 months.
Upstream has raised $3.5 million to this point in pre-seed and seed funding rounds, in line with Crunchbase.
