Matt Cutts Proposes Fresh Gmail Feature

Matt Cutts’s wishes are not Google’s commands.  Just the same, the guy is undeniably influential, and his latest idea – giving Gmail the ability to send things at a predetermined time or date – seems to have gotten a good response from would-be users.

Following a blog post titled "What Gmail feature do you want the most?" Cutts received a lot of other ideas, as well.  Still, we’ll be sticking with the time-delay feature, for which the Googler imagined three different uses.

First was "the ‘oops’ filter" – something that would hold onto unnecessarily mean or typo-ridden messages for a while.  Second was the simple act of slowing down a conversation – maybe you’re tired of trading minute-by-minute emails.  The third use would be a way of anticipating daily or weekly exchanges.

We can think of another thing or two, though.  For example: remember the "Seinfeld" episode in which George paints himself as workaholic by leaving his car parked at the office?  Now workers could have business emails send themselves at 3 AM.

This is definitely the sort of thing that we’d like to see tacked onto Gmail.  And if you’ve got any better ideas, Cutts is encouraging comments; perhaps the Gmail team will take a gander at them, as well.