Thursday, September 30, 2010

Google gives Gmail users more control over inboxes


SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. is addressing one of the biggest complaints about its free e-mail service by giving people more control over how their inboxes are organized.
The new option announced Wednesday will allow Gmail users to choose whether they prefer their incoming messages stacked in chronological order, instead of having them threaded together as part of the same electronic conversation.
Gmail has been automatically grouping messages by topic or senders since Google rolled out the service six years ago.
But this so-called "conversation view" confused or frustrated many Gmail users who had grown accustomed to seeing all their newest messages at the top of the inbox followed by the older correspondence. After all, that's how most other e-mail programs work.
The complaints grew loud enough to persuade Google to revise the Gmail settings so users can turn off conversation view and unravel their messages.
"We really hoped everyone would learn to love conversation view, but we came to realize that it's just not right for some people," Google software engineer Doug Chen wrote in a Wednesday blog post.
The aversion to conversation view doesn't seem to be widespread. Gmail ended July with nearly 186 million worldwide users, a 22 percent increase from the same time a year ago, according to the research firm comScore Inc. Both Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail (nearly 346 million users) and Yahoo's e-mail (303 million users) are larger, but aren't growing nearly as rapidly as Gmail.

36 comments:

  1. Interesting to see how google bent to the community this time. I still remember when it was first released.

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  2. google is soon going to over the internet

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  3. Google > everyone else. I have no idea why people still use hotmail etc o_O. Google is superior

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  4. I'm surprised yahoo mail and hotmail are even still around, they don't even compare.

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  5. Nice tech and news blog. You put some work in it, will follow.

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  6. At least google is listening to their users, personally I like the thread style.

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  7. I love the new style. But to each his own I guess.

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  8. gotta love the freedom as the internet

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  9. I just saw this and it's about time because my credit card reminders and bills get lost in junk that isn't really important

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  10. Lol @ SCHWARTZ.
    Google has it on lock.

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  11. this is why i use gmail best out there! thanks for the cool blog! sharing the love bro !

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  12. Every day i realise google owns a little more of me. :/

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  13. gmail > all

    xD And I hate the way other email services work, I love gmail

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  14. I've been waiting for this update :D

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  15. i use the mail app on my mac. is there anyone who has used both that can tell me which is better?

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  16. I prefer the conversation view so this doesn't really affect me that much.

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  17. hmmm....gmail? I had no idea there were differences in email. I just use hotmail.

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  18. Gmail is really nice, always has been really easy to access it with an email client

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  19. You can always count on Google improving things based on community support... go Google!

    Too bad I don't use my gmail account much, I prefer hotmail.

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  20. I like both Gmail and Hotmail-I suppose it depends if you need to keep track of multiple things!

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  21. Gmail is the best. Good information, thanks.

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  22. very interesting, cant wait for more :D

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  23. Google is far better than hotmail just saying

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