Google is trying to redefine how we consume email yet again. They announced a new inbox.
The New gmail inbox feature isn’t completely new if you were among the users of the Gmail labs feature called the Smart labels. I have tried the smart labels ever since i saw them and i have to admit I have mixed thoughts on them. I have it turned on my personal id and it does the job quite well most times. I do agree that, you can’t get the tagging right by semantics alone which is why i am a little biased it does need some user discretion. The problem i had is that, I had set smart labels to tagging offers and deals from a merchants as promotions, so the inbox looked clean as i had set them to be archived after tagging for later. sadly a purchase receipt from one of the merchants got archived with the promotions tag, giving me brief concern about not receiving the receipt. Gladly the Gmail search is sturdy that i found the email in few seconds, but the brief panic was enough to make me think if these smart labels were worth turning on or for what categories should i turn them on. So the new inbox is going to be confusing and may be frustrating till people get the hang of it.
The new gmail inbox is definitely a step forward but it is definitely not a winner.