I’ve been messing around with Zenbe, a new email aggregator that’s so much more than just email, and I honestly don’t know what to think about it yet.

Released to public BETA now (which means you can get one with a little wait) it’ll take your gmail, hotmail, and a few other email services and put them alongside your twitter, facebook, and google talk.

You can also create agenda’s, manage a calendar, sort through pictures that are in your emails and/or attachments (coolest thing so far) and create “ZenPages” where you can pull in feeds and more.  You can even share these pages with others and have real time discussions and chat.

But this is the killer Q: is the whole greater than the sum of it’s parts?  Or vice versa?

From my end of the stick I can’t seem to find the collective value in the mashed-together services which lose some of their respective functions, and especially some of the 3rd party apps for the services which make it possible to do what I do.

For example, losing TweetDeck for Zenbe’s extremely limited Twitter service would really stink.  Or creating new “tags” for my gmail but losing my already current “Label” structure is pointless.

Yet, I’m willing to give it a shot.  If you’re feeling brave, sign up for BETA, import some data, and tell me what I’m missing… because I think I’m missing a lot.

But here’s the thing:  Zenbe, in my opinion, is probably the closest thing to what a lot of ministries and businesses who are making evangelical apps end up doing: Cobbling services together to produce a presumed add-value when it’s simply not necessary.

Let’s do something from the ground up, let’s do something different, and let’s build something that’s better than the sum of it’s parts… because isn’t that the Church?

Any who, give it a go and let me know!