You know the saying to “eat your own dog food”, when a company uses the products that it makes. It’s a way for a company to demonstrate confidence in its own products, and to continue to develop a better experience for its consumers by having the mindset of an end-user.

The expression apparently comes from back in the 50s when the pet food division of the M&M Mars candy company was trying to sell canned dog food to grocery stores. At the time, dogs typically ate table scraps, and the thought of a grocer selling pet food was unheard of. In order to convince store managers that dog food was OK, the sales associates were instructed to open a can, pull out a juicy bit with a silver fork, and eat it. Hence — it is so good that you are willing to eat your own dog food!

In 1988, Microsoft manager Paul Martiz sent Brian Valentine, test manager for Microsoft LAN Manager, an email titled “Eating our own Dogfood”, challenging him to increase internal usage of the company’s product. From there, the usage of the term spread throughout the company, and is commonly used today in technology circles. For example, Google recently confirmed that it was testing a new concept in mobile phones, writing in a Dec 12, 2009 blog post that it was “dogfooding” the devices.

So in that spirit, we want to share with you the favorite flavors of “dog food” from the Silentale team…  and maybe it will give you some ideas of how you can find Silentale useful too:

@npellant
For me I love Silentale for the contacts system. The fact that Silentale auto-combines and organizes my contacts is top stuff for me. [This is the main reason I'm looking forward to the iPhone app -] I hate having to update my contacts – a system which does it automatically for me is fantastic. I have so many different email accounts with different people on each, it really is a lifesaver.

@lfp
Keeping up with the number of people I come in contact with is a full time job in itself! Between Silentale users, investors, press, partners, and the members of the startup community, I need to recall and keep up with tons of different companies/projects, and all our previous discussions. I’ve been using Silentale for doing just that, quick access to my contact details, as well as our discussions and documents exchanged.

@alin_alexandru
For me, Silentale is the best way to search through emails… with 6 different email accounts, it’s impossible to keep track of which account received a particular message.

@lbret
I confess that my biggest vice is laziness… after I used Silentale a couple of times to search for a name or address that I couldn’t find, I realized that I don’t need to search anywhere else. ALL my information is there, in one convenient place. For example, if I need my Truphone confirmation email, but can’t remember which of my email accounts I signed up with, I just use the Silentale search bar in Firefox to find what I need in a matter of seconds. But aren’t lazy people more productive and effective because they’re always looking for shortcuts to save time and effort?

@florentVaucelle
Being able to quickly find contact details for someone without having to check multiple accounts really saves me time. And then I can choose the best way to send them a message.

@nicolas_
I’ve exchanged a lot of valuable information with my old teammates, partners and friends. From ideas to methodologies, as well as solutions to problems we solved years ago. It happens all over the place via emails, tweets, etc and now they’re all at my fingertips. I just have to click on the photo of someone in Silentale to instantly retrieve all our exchanges. It’s like my own personal library that someone else created for me.

@Omikronn
The thing I love the most is the Firefox Add-on. It automatically detects who I’m looking at, whether in an email or on social networks, and all my latest messages as well as the contact details for that person magically appear… super handy!

@zuzur
It’s part of my day-to-day job to check that our huge archive of messages is updated and displayed in a timely fashion; we have over 40 million messages processed so far! I love having one place that keeps all my messages together (from 2 Gmail accounts, Twitter, Facebook, Google Contacts, LinkedIn etc), but I’m also a big fan of search by contact. Because I remember who I exchanged a message with easier than when or where, I can easily find what I need by searching all the messages I’ve exchanged with a particular person.

@mitztim
Having all my accounts safely archived in one place is great. It only takes 5 minutes to setup, and then I don’t have to think about it anymore!

@sferguson
One thing that drives me crazy is trying to find someone’s Twitter handle. People’s Twitter names are so different from their other networks, it’s almost impossible to keep up with them! Case in point: my colleague Catalin’s Twitter is @Omikronn… who can remember that?!? Silentale’s consolidated contact details gives me instant access to everyone’s Twitter profile without the hassle of hunting them down.

We’d love to hear how you use Silentale, either in general, or specific examples of how it’s helped you save time, find information quickly & easily, improved your ability to manage your relationships & conversations etc. Please drop us a line in the comments below or tweet us @silentale!

We wanted to share what some of our users from all over the world have said about why they like Silentale…maybe it will even give you some ideas about how you can use the service!  We love to get feedback, and really appreciate that folks can see the big picture while we’re still in private beta and working out the kinks.  Thanks everyone!

Translated as best we can from Portuguese: “Silentale is ideal to track and store conversations.  Excellent for information management.”

And translation from German: “Silentale is cool, all your conversations from Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail or POP3/IMAP emails merged into one Timeline.“

We hope you’ll keep sending us feedback, comments, and suggestions by Twitter, Facebook or directly!