I looked at the blog post and then I looked at the date. No, it’s not April Fools and yes Google did just release a new product, created by Jon Perlow, called Mail Goggles. The new feature, which is a play on the term Beer Goggles (which refers to being so drunk that unattractive people look attractive) has the goal of helping you unsend those crazy drunken emails that sometimes go out late at night and on weekends.
If enabled, Gmail asks to you to complete a few “simple” math problems in a limited period of time before the email goes out.
There are two problems with the product. First, I hate math. Second, if I want to send a drunken email, and all that’s standing between me and success are a few math problems, I’m gonna go find that calculator.
I send messages I shouldn’t send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together. Gmail can’t always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret, but today we’re launching a new Labs feature I wrote called Mail Goggles which may help.
When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?
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Someone should build this for blog comments, too. (Auto-activated after 8pm)
The hilarity of this post was heightened by having “beer goggles” explained so seriously.
Change “drunk” to “intoxicated” and the comedy is complete!
I couldn’t agree more! Hahaha
I think they’re thinking about international readers. “Beer goggles”, I guess, is a western (english-speaking) term. I didn’t know about “beer goggles” until I read it from here.
Interesting but please make sure Google have correct math calculation
Brilliant! I agree, can we implement this into all of our social media? And chats? And in real life?
Yeah - and don’t forget the mobile phone…
Kinda on the surreal side…
Anyone used it yet?
I am also curious as to how this would look. Please let me know if you have tried it.
I want this for late night facebook messages, lol. Who agrees?
This is probably more necessary for Facebook messages haha
Agreed. Facebook is dangerours drunk. Email doesn’t have a Feed.
So.. nobody wants to receive emails from some hot girl telling you she’s thinking of you in the middle of the night and that she wants you!? Common, you’re so ridiculously geek!
come on, it’s just a funny app from their gmail labs ! it’s just a place where people can build apps for gmails, and they are promoting it. There is also a snake, a attach file missing detector etc.
don’t be so fast at getting mad about them !
Is Twitter listening?? I would rather have this protecting me from unwanted after-morning-tweet-denial!
that sh*t is funny..
Great product from a company that wont even accept adverts for beer.
Hyprocrites.
i can still do math when i’m drunk
They need some non-math questions. I can do math drunk… I can pass a math final drunk
Problem is - my Blackberry doesn’t have this “feature.” The majority of my late night emails come from the handheld device.
Come from the handheld device ?
Really.
Thanks for making me crack up in front of my coworkers you jerk!
I’m still laughing
Don’t you know that feeling when you send an email and instantly know that you a) forgot the attachment
b) replied instead of forwarded
c) sent to all rather than your girlfriend.
Happened to me daily until I set my Outlook to “send every 5 minutes”. The delay in processing the outbox is a simple but handy feature I truly miss after switching from outlook to Gmail. Saved me a lot of hassle. I was hoping the Mail Goggles feature was it. But it wasn’t. It’s just silly.
YES YES YES agree - google please add something like this.
What’s so bad about telling “that” girl that you have a crush on her? At least she will know whacha thinking about her
Maybe Mike was really buzzed and sent the email to the wrong girl –or his best friend’s…
This gmail feature may look silly, but could save us from many embarrassing situations or the ones with ‘really’ bad consequences: I lost an important promotion once [do not ask me for details] and was fired from a temp job…
Hi Susan… I’ve got a job for you.. How good is your lungs?
Truly inspirational - perfect for the generation that has “play dates”, don’t get their driver’s license till they are 18 (or older) and need to be supervised 24×7. They are missing out on the sheer unabashed joy of unbridled regret and sheer embarrassment - I’d be more embarrased if I couldn’t do the math problems than sending a drunken email or two.
Michael you inspired my own blog post on this subject: http://smokejumpingblog.blogsp.....d-you.html
Mike, if anyone knows the relevance of such an app, it would most likely be you. How many well thought out e-mails do you receive between after 12am? (Sorry)
I want this enabled for voting booths on Nov 4th. Palin wouldn’t be able to vote for herself!
Finding way too much politically charged commentary on tech blogs of late. Would you people please STFU and go to HufPo or Drudge if you want to talk about your politics?
One word. Awesome.
Jason Kiesel
Founder & CEO
http://www.freedomspeaks.com
LOL, great stuff.. I love google
http://gatesandjobs.blogspot.com/
Nice that they didnt have something like place of birth or phone number or what is your first pets girlfriends name…
Another feature in the same league as the iPhone lighter app. Charge $0.99 to download as an iPhone App and provide an online map to locate other Mail Gogglers. Add a feature to send you an SMS when you are close to another Goggler and you have a killer app. What is the price of meeting someone as weird as you?
In Spain the equivalent to April fools day is 28 December. Are you sure 7 October is not the equivalent April fools somewhere else?
I like it. Only problem: I’d need to be really really drunk (like unable to use my computer-drunk) in order not to be able to solve those questions without thinking about it. And I’m no Math-Genius by far.
I’d need this more for instant messenger
I think it takes long time to do this.
Id prefer this for drunken Facebook comments. thats where the real drama goes down
Drunken tweets are also a common disaster. Sigh.
haha, good thing you fully explained the term “Beer Googles”
Good, can they make ‘Foreign Policy Googles’ for the Whitehouse?
“Archives indicate that you’ve never dropped the L-bomb with this contact. Are you sure you want to go there?
[No - What was I thinking?] [Yes - I'm ready to take the plunge!]
I enabled this last night, and think it’s awesome. I set it to difficulty 5 from 10pm to 5am - no more half asleep nonsensical ramblings sent to the boss from me.
There has to be someone out there working on a bluetooth pocket breathalyzer…
hilarious.
there IS market need for a drunken twitter text messager that intercepts “drunk titters” from ever reaching the internet
What a lad f complete rubbsh. Nobody needs zhish.
Nobody ever sends dmail or makes comments when erunk, and it,s just as well too.
Yeah. Arrington, you.
If a site ever needed this feature, its ours. But, its nice to see that Goog has a sense of humor. Microsoft tried to but all it ended up with is Seinfeld and a bunch of commercials nobody understood. At least they’re on the right track now with their ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ theme.
Lmao that is priceless
They need to just release their own version of mailbox rules similar to outlook. I wouldn’t mind an ‘outbox’ where some emails sat for a quick 30-60 seconds to catch those random things I missed.
a difficult calculus question would have served as a better replacement of those 5 questions.
thats too funny, but I would imagine some gmail users will install and use the app.
I think this is a good idea, google should make it an optional function. However,can google change the math problems to some other forms?
This is a great idea.
This is gonna be real tough for some people
Since a lot of people use Gmail, it would seem like a better idea for Google to have a feature within Gmail where the user can retract an email they arleady sent, if the person they sent it to also happens to be a Gmail user and has not read the email yet.
ha ha thats funny
hi
I think it takes a person who’s actually been in a situation where such a feature has been called for to really appreciate it. I’m totally for this feature being forcefully implemented on my phone
i love jason
so much
i love u jason
yea, is really a good idea!
way too easy even on, hardest
it is a nice site