Google Priority Inbox Launches (VIDEO): A 'Mind-Reading' Inbox To Help Cut Clutter

*See screenshot and video below*
SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. can sift through more than a trillion Web links in a matter of seconds, but can the Internet search leader help people wade through their overflowing e-mailboxes?

That's the challenge Google will try to tackle Tuesday with the introduction of a tool called "Priority Inbox" in its Gmail service. CNN Money calls it a "mind-reading inbox," while Fortune dubs it an "email PA."

The feature relies on formulas devised by Google engineers to automatically figure out and highlight which incoming messages are likely to be the most important to each Gmail user.

Users who opt to turn on the Priority Inbox will see their messages separated into three categories. "Important and unread" e-mails will be at the top followed by messages that have been previously stamped with a star by an accountholder. Everything else appears at the bottom.

Switching back to the standard view of the inbox can be done with a click on a link along the left side of the Web page.

Google's e-mail analysis is based on a variety of factors, including a person's most frequent contacts and how many other people are getting the same message. The content of the e-mail also is factored into the equation.

Although it might unnerve some people, the notion of Google's computers scanning through the content of individual e-mails isn't new. Google has been doing it for years to determine what kinds of ads to show to the right of e-mails and to block junk e-mail commonly known as "spam."

With more than 100 daily e-mails pouring into some inboxes now, people now need help to identify "the bacon and baloney" along with the spam, said Keith Coleman, Gmail's product director.

Google helped create the information clutter six years ago when it introduced its free Gmail service with a then-unheard of 1 gigabyte of storage per account. Other e-mail services quickly expanded their capacity limits to remain competitive, and now most inboxes can store multiple gigabytes of information.

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Comments

[Ben Work]

04:47 PM on 09/08/2010

Priority is so critical in this era of informatio­n overload! Cohuman.co­m also does a nice job of prioritizi­ng your tasks. Which also happens to have the effect of reducing email by making your digital life more streamline­d. . .

[yy4u2rel82]

10:44 PM on 09/01/2010

apparently google wants to know what we think of this: http://goo­glepriorit­yinbox.com

Me? I don't like it.. but then I think google spends too much time in my email already.

[writebrain1]

10:00 AM on 09/01/2010

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=bGOafAXMx­98 Gmail... scary.

[angry expat]

09:59 AM on 09/01/2010

what a big dumb waste of time. just read your own dang email. convenienc­e is one thing - laziness is another. geez!

[TruEngineHearing]

11:06 AM on 09/05/2010

...could you read mine then too? You must have some time you can waste I definitely don't - and it's totally un-fun going through 100 - 500 headers a day. Anybody that has a secure, non-invasi­ve way to avoid this gets my attention.

[arcanepsyche]

04:24 AM on 09/01/2010

Don't see it on my account yet.....I'­m intrigued to see what it can do.

[yy4u2rel82]

10:46 PM on 09/01/2010

i don't think everyone will be seeing it on their account for awhile. according to the site page, it is only going beta to some starting tomorrow: http://goo­glepriorit­yinbox.com

[Neerja Bhatia]

08:49 PM on 08/31/2010

This challenge has been tackled by Messagemin­d's Dynamic Prioritiza­tion, a Microsoft Outlook add-in tool. I have been using it for some time now and not only does the technology address the prioritiza­tion, it also provides a workflow management component.

[humaneisfact]

07:27 PM on 08/31/2010

Eh,I closed my gmail account.