Labels basically just allow for some flexibility in building your own email management system within an email application. People use labels in so many different ways. I see them used in some fairly creative way and I think that what is happening is essentially hacking an old system. There's probably some "pave the cow paths" type stuff that can be done with people are using these things. I think that's kind of what Mailbox is doing. Marking something to essentially deal with it later is pretty much labeling it with a "do later" (or whatever) label in a current email system. They're just making the act of adding that "label" more simple.
The stuff that gets me excited is the more smart, automated, learning management. Alto is messing with some pretty cool stuff in that area. Just the simple act of automatically bunching emails without me intervening is a really compelling feature I think. It sort of takes away the concept of one big inbox. That automatic separate leads to all sorts of possibilites from just personal organization to analyzing certain "stacks" (to use an Alto term). I really don't know is best, but I can say that I've enjoyed that feature of Alto quite a lot.
Overall, I love seeing new takes on how to deal with email. There's certainly room for improvement and certainly some problems that can be solved. Keep the new ideas comin'!
Anybody see Drew design and build this thing real-time last night/this morning? I watched some last night and checked back this morning and he was still going. Kind of whistling and humming to himself...he may have been tired.
The stuff that gets me excited is the more smart, automated, learning management. Alto is messing with some pretty cool stuff in that area. Just the simple act of automatically bunching emails without me intervening is a really compelling feature I think. It sort of takes away the concept of one big inbox. That automatic separate leads to all sorts of possibilites from just personal organization to analyzing certain "stacks" (to use an Alto term). I really don't know is best, but I can say that I've enjoyed that feature of Alto quite a lot.
Overall, I love seeing new takes on how to deal with email. There's certainly room for improvement and certainly some problems that can be solved. Keep the new ideas comin'!