Just happened to notice this morning that Twitter has updated the format of its emails notifying folks that they have new followers... and new format: It is a subtle change, but subtle is the Lord. Gone is the salutatory "Hi, Your Name." replaced by getting straight into who is now following you. Mainly, the new design elements point the user towards an actionable "What's Next?" multiple choice group (which sends them to Twitter's home page, which pleases the VC's and comScore). Plus, there's the new link to Twitter's Mobile site. I wonder when these will include ads or either pointers to Twitter for iPhone/Android? Good design change, IMO. It's always been fascinating to watch the evolution of these mails since I first joined Twitter back in '06. I've always wondered what the next step in these "Bacn" messages will be as the young folks move away from email. Do people under 30 even pay attention to Bacn anymore?

One of my biggest problems with Apple Mail (or GMail in the past) has been the inability to keep mail as unread until I'm ready to act on it. It's probably not the greatest GTD strategy to keep mail marked as "unread" in my inbox until I'm ready to process or address it, but I picked up the habit years ago as an Outlook and then Thunderbird user. I'm not sure if GMail ever remedied the issue with a Labs feature, but after a bit of googling-out-of-frustration today I found the Apple Mail plugin TruePreview from Christian Serving, LLC. It's free, quick, easy and works. After trying out a number of other hacks, I was so happy to come across this today and had to share in case there are any other wacko's out there who prefer to keep mail new until it's time to act.

When GMail launched on April 1, 2004 I did everything I could to get a precious invite to the service. A few days later, my wish came true and I signed up with skyhawkscience@gmail.com. I then decided to switch over to sharrelson@gmail.com in 2005. That's been my primary "personal email" for the last five years until I started moving everything "back home." Here's the first email to that account (check out that sig quote): Now I'm forwarding everything from there into the sam@samharrelson email (which I plan to use until my atoms move on). It's been a slow process of downloading everything from GMail (via POP) into a secured spot but I'm enjoying creating my "Memory Theater" system full of DIY text files. Here's to the next five yeas of emails (on my own system).