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Google Announces Inbox, a New Take On Email Organization

Posted by Soulskill on from the will-be-in-beta-for-the-next-eight-years dept.

Z80xxc! writes: The Gmail team announced "Inbox" this morning, a new way to manage email. Inbox is email, but organized differently. Messages are grouped into "bundles" of similar types. "Highlights" pull out and display key information from messages, and messages can be "snoozed" to come back later as a reminder. Inbox is invite-only right now, and you can email inbox@google.com to request an invite.

10 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. More changes I don't want ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd be just as happy if they'd leave gmail alone. It was fine years ago without all the ****. That said, I might be a crusty old fart and in need of shaking up.

    1. Re:More changes I don't want ... by blackjackshellac · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, considering how badly they fucked up Google Maps, I think you're right to be cautious.

      --
      Salut,

      Jacques

    2. Re:More changes I don't want ... by halivar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't see any reason to eschew experimentation simply for the sake of familiarity. The old inbox will always be around; if not at Google, then at a competitor. You lose nothing. And for every hundred failed ideas, there's one gem that changes how we think about something forever.

    3. Re:More changes I don't want ... by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One could thread messages before webmail if one's mail client had support for it. Hell, Usenet and Fidonet clients could thread messages, as could public message boards. That technology dates back to the dawn of the personal computer, and may well have existed on big-iron machines before that.

      That's kind of what pisses me off about modern "innovation", it's reimplementing something that already existed, much of the time, and trying to call it novel or new. There are very few legitimate new technologies these days.

      Even when they're going on about VPC and being able to spawn apps, that's just X Consortium all over again. From 1984.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    4. Re:More changes I don't want ... by afgam28 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1. UI innovations are still innovative, even if the underlying technology has been around for a while.

      2. There are no existing email clients that bundle semantically similar emails and extract relevant highlights. Even if you're not impressed with the ui there is still a lot of interesting machine learning behind this.

    5. Re:More changes I don't want ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      1. Some of us define innovation as novel improvements. Implementing something that already exists isn't innovative. Coming up with the initial idea was the innovative part. Incremental improvements aren't innovation, no matter what marketing says.
      2. Incorrect.
      2a) Bundling: Custom rule based or sorting by specific things (both of which are supported by every modern email client). Also spam flagging. 2b) Extracting: Outlook extracts dates and times and recommends creating calendar events. Thunderbird highlights media content. Every client I've seen provides some sort of email summary. Google is making that summary slightly smarter, something I don't want. I'd much rather people wrote the most important bit on the first line rather than wasting it with a useless greeting. I already know you're talking to me because you sent the email to me. I also know who sent it because you're in the 'from' field. Signatures are a waste of space, more people should use vCards. Back on topic, a smarter summary will likely miss some important aspect of the email due to limited display space, leading to more confusion from the people who will begin the rely on this system instead of actually reading the email.

  2. No Fuckign Thanks by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It combines the worst of mobile, email, and social.
    At least they're not injecting it into Gmail like all their previous attempts... ...yet.

  3. Why do I still read these comments by Mikelikus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The level of naysayers, resistance to change in Slashdot is the most I have seen in forever and I have been reading Slashdot for quite a while now.
    Could you please, please, try it before saying that it is just like [insert failed google product here] or [insert very successful google product that you don't like here].

    I know this is quite a culture shift for Slashdot, but sometimes it's too much.

    --
    -- Would it be acceptable to just put my name on my sig?
  4. Sigh! by jason.sweet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Please don't tell me you are one of those MORONS who relies on software for real-time instructions

    Since this is slashdot, I shouldn't have to remind you of the things in the modern world that depends on real-time instructions from software. But I will say this: If software running on 1960's technology could get humans to the moon and back, it is not unreasonable for me to expect my phone to tell me how to get to ikea.

    1. Re:Sigh! by Sloppy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I shouldn't have to remind you of the things in the modern world that depends on real-time instructions from software.

      You are not one of those things! You GIVE orders to computers, not take! The computer is supposed to be your bitch. Thirty years ago people worried about Terminators, and now I find out that all Skynet has to do, is nicely tell people to jump off cliffs. I can't wait until Google Surgeon, when everyone thinks they should just blindly do what they're told, preferably with impatience and in real time.

      Google Surgeon [speaking slowly]: "Snip the art--"

      Doctor: [snip] "Yeahyeah doesanyoneknowhow tospeedupthisthing'sspeech?"

      Google Surgeon: "--ery, but first, clamp off the blood supply so the patient doesn't bleed to death."

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.