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Email Plugs Into Social Networking

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the faster-inbox-happier-rob dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft Research recently released SNARF, the Social Network and Relationship Finder. It works in the Outlook email client to prioritize and sort emails based on the relationship to the sender and other characteristics of incoming email messages. Trusted Reviews wonders if 2006 is the year of ordering information and reports on ClearContext, which does similar prioritization of emails as well as some email driven task management."

8 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. First ambient findability, now this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What if you don't want to be found?

  2. Why do we need fancy new smoke and mirrors? by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You can already do all of these things. It's called "sort."

    Prioritize based on the "relationship of the sender?" Without a doubt, crap like this 100% of the time works against you, because it keeps choking on anomalies and changing things. There's no need to automate something that will eventually cost more time than it saves, other than the "ooh, shiny newstuff!!" factor.

    1. Re:Why do we need fancy new smoke and mirrors? by kfg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's called "sort."

      Well, perhaps it's called filter and sort, but point taken.

      For instance GF, BF, PU and MLs each have their own folder. I'm not sure what all else I'm supposed to do with these other than sort and find. My "Social Network" is pretty well dealt with by this strategy.

      Software like this assumes the computer is wiser about you than you are, and if that's true you've go more things to worry about than sorting your mail. As a friend of mine likes to state:

      "Life is hard. It's harder if you're stupid."

      KFG

    2. Re:Why do we need fancy new smoke and mirrors? by dupup · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Agreed. Most of my email communication is with co-workers rather than friends and family. Even if this feature worked correctly, which seems dubious, wouldn't it want to sort my email by my actual priorities (friends and family first) rather than the priorities I pretend to have during the day (boss, job, etc)?

  3. Didn't they learn anything from spam? by Peregr1n · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Frankly, as no system I know of has 100% efficiency in sorting spam from real messages, I don't trust it one inch in prioritising my messages either.

    I wonder what criteria it uses to sort email - if it's simply looking at the email address, then it's going to take up the user's time in setting up relationships and sort criteria, something which I can guarantee most people can't be bothered to do.

    I can hardly find the time to sort email into folders, which is why I'm quite fond of gmail - as it doesn't have folders, I don't feel guilty about not using them...

  4. Re:lol no its not a virus by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hasn't Microsoft screwed up email enough already?
    Not enough, apparently.

    I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually see the development of something like this being subsidized by spam vendors - the next gen Outlook malware wil happily report that it has gone out of its way to find you other people who N33D $ B1GG3R PEN15, just like you, and enrolled you in 4 different "anti-virus products" that it has taken the liberty to "opt you into".

    Of course, it will also note that at one time you read Lord of the Rings, and you will be bombarded with offers for juvenile, poorly written fantasy with 1-dimensional characters and boring plots, as well as all sorts of cheap rings and other [tt]acky jewelry.

  5. Business landmine by lheal · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It also offers transportability if one of my employees moves on or if we bring someone on for a contract gig.


    If the mail is on gmail, it's theirs, not yours. When they leave, all that information goes with them. If the departure is ... untidy, that could mean anything from simple spam to having competitors know your trade secrets. If the departure has legal implications, you lose valuable leverage.


    Granted, a savvy employee can archive his email and keep it at home, or even plop an automatic dup in their .forward file, but most people don't do that. With gmail (or any free mail), they don't have to.



    --
    Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
  6. Re:E-mail needing new features? by walt-sjc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Careful with the "$5 unlimited SMS" claims. Frequently, they are only cell 2 cell in the SAME network, or you pay something stupid like 25 cents each. Email to cell is an example of an out of network message.

    Many plans have a limit to their plans of something like 200 messages.

    Furthermore, even $5 is a LOT considering that 300 messages a months is high, and that's about 50K worth of data, MAX. Over a buck a K? That's insane.

    With "In" phone calls being free, "In" SMS for $5 seems stupid to sign up for. Obviously you find people (must be the teen market) willing to pay that - I'm not willing to. If it was $5 unlimited SMS to and from any network, any gateway, you MAY tempt me.