Thursday, May 3, 2012

Google Glass "In" - Mail Goggles "Out"


Googles' Glasses and Goggles

Are you familiar with the Gmail Labs  experiment Google Mail Goggles? It allowed you to try to save yourself from yourself using math to filter your good judgment from your bad. Let me explain.

Picture a Friday night. You are about to go out drinking. You know yourself all too well, and realize that after a few pitchers of beer you might stumble home and send angry email to your boss or your ex-spouse or send romantic email to a casual acquaintance or come clean to the IRS about past income tax "decisions." So, using Google Mail Goggles, you set a trap for yourself. "If I can't solve a few simple math problems, I'm too impaired to send responsible email."

Good idea, right? Not good enough apparently. Google's Gmail Labs introduces new ideas all the time, and retires those that don't have a future. Recently, they've brought Google Translate to Gmail to make email translation a little smoother, while at about the same time they decided to retire Google Mail Goggles.

I have to wonder whether Goggles and Project Glass were named a little too close for comfort. If so, one of them had to go and the choice was a no brainer.

Had you been using Google Mail Goggles? Would you have used it if you knew it existed? Leave a comment and let us know.

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5 comments:

  1. I found your post when looking for news on the removal of mail goggles. Apparently it has not been announced officially. I used it a lot (not as a druk test but just to keep my brain active) and I would love to keep using it.

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    1. Thanks for letting me know, and thanks for reading. Google certainly keeps a lot of tool up and available. Maybe they'l keep mail goggles around a while longer.

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  2. I found out about its removal much to my chagrin about five minutes ago. Oh well. I do wish they had alerted those of us who used the service.

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  3. I used Mail Goggles religiously. If anyone out there used Goggles too, you might interested in a Chrome extension for Gmail I built called Send Keeper. It helps increase your email efficiency. It's free :) Please check it out! www.sendkeeper.com

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  4. I had it set for weekend nights and it came into play more than once. Offered nice functionality - sad to learn its gone.

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