Gmail Clips irritate me!

For several months now, I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival in my inbox of a Gmail feature to which only some users had access until last week.  The feature, known as Gmail Clips, integrates RSS into Gmail making it possible to view microchunks of content at the top of the inbox.  When I first learned about it, I was really excited about it and frustrated that I was not included in the initial release.

So when I found out last week that Gmail Clips had been made available to all users, I discovered something I didn't expect:  I HATE IT!  I find the presence of the constantly-changing feeds irritating, particularly the feed for Spam recipes included in the the Spam filter.  It's too clever by half, and it cannot be turned off unless you turn off Gmail Clips entirely.  And that is precisely what I have done. 

This surprising situation does not diminish my admiration for Google one bit.  Every innovator will create things that some people love and others loathe.  I love RSS, but not in the way Gmail is incorporating it.  Perhaps I'll come to appreciate Gmail Clips in time, but for right now, its been clipped out of my inbox! 

Comments

[David Gammel]

My inbox gets crowded enough without RSS feeds piling in. Makes sense to me that it would be pretty distracting. I like having my feeds off in their own application.

[Ed Hou]

Can't you choose which feeds you want to cycle? That's what I'm doing; I'm cycling through just about every Mozilla-related and tech feed there is.

Anyway, I think that seperating the feeds from the inbox was a great idea. I honestly can't be bothered to read my feeds sometimes, as I have many. This method is neither distracting, as it's only one line of text, not a thorn in the side to get through.

[Knonie]

I find them interesting... They look cool.

We just glance them sometimes, and most of the times it helps us to know some useful tip or info about something.

:-)

[melvynadam]

What's needed is a clever browser extension which turns them off when you're in the spam folder. I got the joke the first time Google, you're very funny. Now give me my selected feeds and not recipes including spam. Once is funny. Ten times a day is simply annoying.