Google Wave Declutters The Inbox With Following Feature

This morning, Google is making a slight update to Wave to help users unclog their inbox from public waves. Previously, you could see public waves in your inbox, which was fairly annoying. Now for a wave to appear in your inbox, you need to “follow” the wave.

When someone adds you directly to a wave, or if you contribute to a wave, you will automatically be following that wave. But when you see a public wave that you would like to get updates on and monitor the conversation, you can chose to follow it by hitting the follow button in the wave panel toolbar. You can also archive waves, which will removes waves from your inbox. When there is an update to an archived wave, it will appear in your inbox again. And you can switch between following and unfollowing a wave as much and as often as you like.

Google says the “unfollow” feature replaces the mute command. You can still find waves that you are not following by searching for them or if you have organized them into saved searches or folders. The feature certainly gives your more control over your inbox, which is always a good thing. Google needs to continue adding more intuitive features to help users better understand the innovative, but confusing communications product.