More Candy Talk: I promise No More Skittles – What do Reeses Peanut Butter Cups Have to do with Semantic Search and Email?

Remember in the 80’s when some unsuspecting  guy enjoying a large bucket of peanut butter would be happily walking down the street when out of nowhere some guy enjoying a huge chunk of chocolate would collide – than you’d hear “you got your peanut butter in my chocolate” from one guy, than the other would reply “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter”!  Than they’d both realize the wonderful marriage of chocolate and peanut butter – BAM – Peanut Butter Cups are born!  Oh Joy!

Yesterday I thought of a similar marriage of technologies that I think will be very powerful.

Email + Semantic Search.

Now, I know that I can’t be the first person to think of this, so if you know of any companies doing it, and doing it well. Please comment, and link to said company. I want to invest. Here’s why:

Financial Times just invested a large chunk of money into Semantic Search Engine Newssift. These guys have their act together, and they have some very powerful tools for Business to Business Research tools.  They can determine the Sentiment of certain news stories that they index. I think this is fascinating, and certainly applicable for research, even identify protection, Public Relations etc. What if the same technology were applied to Email? What if you were able to tell between the urgent email from your boss and the totally innocuous one from said boss about Thursday’s lunch meeting?  Wouldn’t this be a much more powerful way to sift through your email?  Perhaps you’d need to keep track of any new business opportunities that hit your in box.  Currently if you have no idea who the sender is, this important note may end up in the trash.

Well, I just thought I’d put it out there.  Who knows maybe Newssift will team up with a Email Service provider and offer the service for free.  I’d use it, wouldn’t you?