Thursday, January 1, 2015

Google as the Curator of Your Life Experience

The Evermind we call Google wants to be your personal secretary - mentoring and massaging your in-tray!

'(Google) sees your (e-mail) inbox as a launch pad for action, not a contemplative venue'! '...Google is releasing an app called Inbox . If the name evokes an email inbox — something that Google users have been enjoying for years as part of Gmail, one of its most famous products — that’s no accident. Then you use this app, you read and respond to the messages sent to your Gmail address, but you do so without opening the familiar application. Instead, you’re using what Google thinks is the future of mail.'

'That future just happens to overlap with what is now the company’s flagship product, Google Now. Just as Google Now draws upon your activities on the company’s various tendrils (search, documents, calendar, etc.) to give you vital information on a just-in-time basis, Inbox scours your email to deliver you the good parts, often relieving you of the tedium of ploughing through the actual message. Then it highlights those nuggets, sometimes even dipping into the Web to present them with relevant links. If you are inclined to linger over thoughtful missives from your colleagues and friends, Inbox won’t stop you — but clearly it sees your inbox as a launch pad for action, not a contemplative venue. In its effort to resolve the logorrhoea of our accumulating mail, its unspoken motto is, “Cut to the chase.”
'


Anyone else with me in feeling this moves them too close to manipulation of the message?  Marshall McLuhan Mark II?


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