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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.

21 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 pushing-robot · · Score: 4, Funny

      Sorry, I don't understand. Did you mean you'll snooze it ?

      --
      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    3. 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.

    4. 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.
    5. Re:More changes I don't want ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Oh Gods, yes. The new maps is an abomination. It drives me insane. It's so SLOOOOW, that huge top-left info box which obscures way too much and keeps flapping up and down, the inability to show transport links AND your searched for items... how the hell are people using it? it's a symptom, though, of Google having become detached from its end-users.

      I use the old maps - there's a URL for them still;

      https://www.google.com/maps?output=classic

    6. Re:More changes I don't want ... by safetyinnumbers · · Score: 3, Informative

      It wasn't threading, it was displaying a thread as one scrollable page that was the innovation. I'd not seen a newsreader or mail client that did that before. Combined with collapsing of quoted text (which was an old idea, I think it was in Eudora or Xnews or something, at least), it's an easier way to read through a thread, removing one level of navigation (paging through messages merged with scrolling down a single message).

    7. Re:More changes I don't want ... by jfengel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, but they're not improving it, and the new Maps doesn't seem to be replacing the features of Classic Maps that I really liked. Any interface needs improvement, and while I like the older interface, its failures become more grating over time.

    8. 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.

  2. It begins again by blueshift_1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... now we get to see comments everywhere flooded with "Can I haz invite code, plz. user@genericdomain.com kthx"

  3. 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.

  4. You have slashdotted an inbox by MerlynEmrys67 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The error that the other server returned was:
    550-5.2.1 The user you are trying to contact is receiving mail at a rate that
    550-5.2.1 prevents additional messages from being delivered. For more
    550-5.2.1 information, please visit
    550 5.2.1 http://support.google.com/mail... dy7si138331wib.0 - gsmtp

    And at google's scale - impressive

    --
    I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
  5. oh fuck no ! ! ! by jordanjay29 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're not forced into any of those features. You don't have to use the tabs, Unread/Important-first inboxes, or threaded view. Please take a look at the settings page for once and stop your bitching.

  6. Hmmm ... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Informative

    So this is the Google Wave thing that nobody knew WTF it was for, but which everyone kept saying was super awesome and the way of the future ... but for email?

    I'm afraid I'm not really overly interested.

    I guess it's cool that someone is still trying to design new things and think about things differently. But from reading TFA, this sounds like something which I'm not sure why I'd want it.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Hmmm ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I used google wave as it was intended. In fact, seeing it work as intended was one of the coolest things ever, and that's why they kept a lot of its features and incorporated them into google docs. We used wave to plan a camping trip with about 20 people. 20 people all working at the same time on a single document, adding things to "buy" lists, getting contact information, editing errors, putting confirmation numbers, adding/removing what each person was able to bring or was responsible for, etc. It was incredibly collaborative and brilliantly simple to use. Sadly I don't think most folks used it like that, or got to experience it. As it stands now, google docs almost completely implements what was there, so at least that functionality still works.

  7. Mail inbox@google.com to opt in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can I mail outbox@google.com to opt out?

  8. Re:Automated digesting by scubamage · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Excuse me Dave, but the crown prince of Nigeria requires your assistance immediately. Also, there is a marked amount of concern about your penis size, you may wish to speak with a medical professional."

  9. Re:As if we needed by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm a longtime Gmail user. Google already has the kinky emails my wife and I exchange. So does the NSA, and I hope they're at least ducking into the men's room to wank.

    --

    I write sci-fi for metalheads

  10. 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?
  11. 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.