Who Needs An API? Powerinbox Adds Google+ Client To Its Email Platform

Powerinbox, the new email platform that lets you run apps for Facebook, Twitter, and Groupon inside your inbox has today added support for Google+. Despite not having access to an official Google+ API (application programming interface), the company was able to analyze the Google+ protocol by tracking the requests between the official Google+ client and server. Powerinbox then created its own internal API and built its Google+ client app on top of it.

Now, when you receive a Google+ notification via email, you can use the Powerinbox app to immediately add that person to one of your Google+ Circles. Support for commenting and status updates is coming next.

In case you’re not familiar with Powerinbox, it’s one of the most practical applications I’ve come across in recent months. The idea behind the startup is to innovate on top of email by augmenting the messages sent to you by various services, essentially turning your emails into apps.

These apps run within the body of your email message by way of a downloadable Web browser extension. Currently, Powerinbox supports Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo mail, but it plans to add support for Outlook soon.

So, for example, when you receive a message that someone followed you on Twitter, you can use the Powerinbox app to see their tweets, follow them back, send them an @reply or direct message. For Facebook notifications, you can view the photos and posts from your friends and comment back, all without having to visit Facebook.com.

Groupon emails display a real-time counter indicating how much time the deal has left, how many people bought the deal and whether the deal has tipped.

It’s the sort of functionality that, had email been invented today, you would expect it to include.

In the future, Powerinbox plans on adding support for more apps, including Dropbox, Netflix, eBay, LinkedIn, airlines, news and even games. (Need to water those crops again? Have at it!)

Given the more established nature of these other services, we wondered why Powerinbox moved to support Google+, a brand-new social network which doesn’t even have an API for developers yet, unless you’re one of the anointed few.

Explains Founder and CEO Matt Thazhmon, the answer is simple: it’s what people wanted. According to the results of the survey the company was running on its website, requests for Google+ beat out LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, PayPal and half a dozen other services.

Powerinbox raised $1.1 million last month, mostly from AngelList investors, including  Atlas Venture (Jeff Fagnan), Longworth Ventures (Jim Savage), Correlation Ventures (Trevor Kienzle), and angels Alan Phillips (where.com), Chris Lynch (Vertica), Joe Caruso (Bantam Group), Leslie Murdock (MurdockMartell), Mark Rose (SpareChange), Mike Santullo (RocketMail) and others. The additional funds will be used to expand the platform and hire engineers.

The company’s addressable market is worth noting too: 4 billion email users by 2014. That alone is reason enough to try to improve the email experience.

PowerInbox, a Boston, MA-based open app platform for email. Powerinbox’s service, which has been made available to the public today, enables users to run apps from inside their email...

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Nokia Needs Help Choosing A Name For Its Windows Phone 7 Handsets… Go!

Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. ? Learn More

More often than we’d like, phones are announced with absolutely horrifying names. Acer’s beTouch, the Casio G’zOne Commando, and the HTC ChaCha all fall hard into that category.

They leave you wondering what went down in the conference room where that name was born, and what could have possibly been going on in the minds of the people who approved them. But honestly, it’s much harder than you think to find a phone with a well-suited, nice-sounding, non-awkward name. Which is why Nokia is leaving it up to us.

When it comes to Nokia’s Windows Phone 7-powered handsets in the U.S., apparently we’re calling the shots as far as names are concerned. The company has posted a poll with over 20 different name options, along with the ability to make your own suggestion. So far the Nokia “Elite”, “Fusion”, “Metro”, and “Genesis” are ahead, with “Phoenix” taking the lead.

In my humble opinion, Phoenix is fitting symbolically but a Genesis is really what Nokia desperately needs. The company has struggled through its attempted transition to MeeGo — a dream that died mere moments after it came into existence. And Nokia continues to lose market share as we wait for Windows Phone 7 to turn things around.

The good news is that Windows-powered Nokia is coming. The fact that U.S. head of development marketing Chanse Arrington put up a poll is only further proof of that. We just hope that the Nokia Phoenix, or Genesis, or Fusion, or whatever… gets here sooner rather than later.

Nokia is a Finnish multinational communications corporation. It is primarily engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices and in converging Internet and communications industries. They make a wide range...

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