Posted by Angela | 6 Comments
Check Your Tone Before You Send that Email
We have all experienced the humiliation of sending a slightly rude email to get the attention of the reader only to realize later that the problem you were blaming on the reader was in fact just a miscommunication. It’s embarrassing. (I’ve done it one too many times.) Well, Lymbix is trying to fix that problem with a new “Tone Check” tool. Still in beta version, ToneCheck will tell you when your email is being mean. This program will analyze your connotation in an email just by clicking a button.
Let’s look at an example of how ToneCheck works:
Here I started an email to the Keystone information email address about a broken email account. As you can tell from my language, I am pretty upset. Email is important to me and obviously I do not like when it is not working. But then I click the ToneCheck button before I send my email just in case I’m too harsh.
Well what do ya know, ToneCheck says I’ll make the reader feel humiliated and shameful. Instead of just labeling my language as generally negative, ToneCheck identifies a range of emotions when it describes your sentences. The range goes from friendliness, enjoyment, amusement, and contentment to sadness, anger, fear, and humiliation.
ToneCheck lets you edit sentences that it finds offensive in any way. Here, you can see I’ve tried to edit my sentence, but I guess I’m still being a little too firm because the system finds my connotation to be angry. I’ll try one more time to get it right…
There we go! I finally got a “contented” verdict after having to use the word “please.” Then, I’ll hit the accept button and my original sentence in the email will be replaced with this last one.
ToneCheck is a pretty interesting tool, and I can see it being very useful for people who are known to send off messages in the heat of the moment. A few flaws I found in the system were how it seems to clump firm sentences in with the “angry” label. I don’t think my second sentence up there was very angry. I was just stating a fact that I have a problem with my email. I had to use the word “please” just to get “contented,” not even “friendliness.” Also, when the program finds my sentences offensive it doesn’t give me any kind of suggestions. That may be something the developers should look into when moving it out of beta.
Despite these minor shortcomings, ToneCheck is a much needed program in the world of email. And if you know anyone who needs a little censoring on their emails, just forward them this post and they’ll get the hint.
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Google Wave to Hit the Scene
Google Wave, introduced back in May, is Google’s most inventive project yet. The driving thought behind the Wave was, “What would e-mail look like if it was invented today?” Wave takes the two known (and very independent) ideas of instant messaging and e-mail and combines the two to create a super instant message-email system called the Wave.
When Google first introduced their new idea, they were very vague about its date of public launch… and that hasn’t really changed. But they have set a date for the first round of semi-public testing. On September 30th, 2009, the Wave will be passed on to 100,000 users outside the Google testing circle. Google has given 6,000 developers (outside of Google) access to the program so far and plans on giving 20,000 more by the end of August.
If you didn’t already sign up to be a tester for the “sandbox” version of Wave, you can sign up here, but most spots will be going to developers who will agree to build protocols, tools, or routines for building the software, making it easier for the Wave to be publically launched.
Read MorePosted by Angela | 0 Comments
Microsoft Takes Two Steps Back with Outlook 2010
Microsoft has announced their decision to use Word 2010 to compose and view e-mails in their new Outlook 2010 despite its failure to render HTML content in e-mails. Basically this means that any e-mail sent from an Outlook user and opened in anything other than Outlook will be distorted. Any HTML code that instructs text to be indented, or floating, or any other position will not translate on another e-mail host.
Last Wednesday, Microsoft became aware of a Twitter campaign called Fix Outlook opposed to Microsoft’s decision to use Word 2010 in the new Outlook. The campaign has built up to over 23,000 (and rising) followers using Twitter to complain about the new Outlook. The goal is to bombard Microsoft with enough complaints to make them change their product. The Email Standards Project said in their blog that they “are in no way advocating that Microsoft shift from using Word to create or render HTML emails. We’re asking that the HTML produced by the Word engine be standards compliant. This in turn will ensure that the engine will correctly render standards-based emails.”
The request seems reasonable for the majority not using Outlook. However, Microsoft continues to stand by their decision to keep Word as the rendering for Outlook 2010 and not change Word’s HTML production to be standards compliant. They claim that the Outlook user will value the assortment of tools and features that Word will provide over the concern of formatting for those not using Outlook. You can find an overview of the battle between Email Standards Project and Microsoft here.
(Photo credit to Freshview on Flickr)
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