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VIDEOGoogle Launches Indispensable Email Sorting Feature
By
Mike Schuster
Aug 31, 2010 1:10 pm
New Gmail feature reduces email bloat and could be the future of how we read our messages.
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If that were me, there would be a modest wooden shack in a Montana forest with my hand-scrawled name on it.
But Google (GOOG) is attempting to alleviate the burden of email overload with a new feature currently rolling out to users. Dubbed "Priority Inbox," the feature automatically learns and sorts your email into sections based on importance, allowing users to better gauge what needs to be read and addressed first without tediously scrolling through an email wasteland.
And judging from early reviews, people are ecstatic about the change. Here's how it works:
The Priority Inbox is divided into three sections of hierarchy: Important and Unread, Starred, and Everything Else. Incoming messages are initially split into the Important and Everything Else sections based on learned criteria and behavior. The important emails that you wish to come back to later can be starred and sent to the appropriate section. Otherwise, the message can be archived or kept in the Everything Else pile.
The sorting algorithm works similarly to Pandora or Apple's (AAPL) iTunes Genius feature -- although hopefully a little better, as anyone who's failed to find the similarity between Skid Row, Depeche Mode, and Charlie Parker could attest. After a few days of use, Priority Inbox automatically learns which senders you tend to read first, which types of messages you reply to most often, if you're the sole recipient, and the frequency of keywords. From there, the user is able to teach the system, correcting any mistake the algorithm has made and mark a message important if it was deemed "Everything Else," and vice versa.
Google has created a ridiculously adorable video to illustrate the process.TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid celebrated the new feature, saying, "It's great. I love it." But he does have his reservations.
For example, the manner in which an email message is sorted isn't explained. Whether it's due to the sender, a keyword, or any other criteria isn't specified. Kincaid worries that redefining the message could potentially break a legitimate sorting feature. However, that discrepancy in the algorithm will be corrected over time as it learns.
If the feature proves to be as successful as the early reviews indicate, automatic sorting could become an essential setting in email, social network messages, comment sections, virtually anything where important content needs to be culled from the chaff. YouTube is one such example where user ratings will promote logical and coherent comments away from the others. (Thank God). But what if that could be done on its own, based on user history and the quality of the post?
We'll have an exponentially improved comment section, that's what.
Kincaid mentions that the new sorting dynamic might influence the sender's word choice, opting for urgent, keyword-heavy rhetoric to better ensure an "Important" tag. But again, depending on the quality of the algorithm, this can be relearned.
But the most immediate outcome of Priority Inbox is a significant reduction of dread when it comes to reading email. Thankfully, that urgent plea from millions of overloaded email recipients is no longer unread.
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