6 Steps to Easily Manage Buzz in the Inbox

  
Do I think Buzz is awesome? Yes. Do I think it’s current format is unruly and unmanageable? Definitely.

If you, like me, find the algorithmic determination of buzz position to be irrelevant, but loooove your gmail inbox, then this solution is for you. Because buzz is so closely integrated with the inbox you can manage all your buzz followups directly from the inbox – or should I say second inbox. By creating a second inbox you can keep track of the most current buzz without destroying the integrity of your precious inbox. Here’s how:

1. Go to Settings at the top right in Gmail, and click Labs (should be toward the right side)
2. Search for Multiple Inboxes – it should be somewhere near the middle – and click Enable
3. Go back into Settings and you will now see a Multiple Inboxes option adjacent Labs. Click this.

Now you may be suddenly confused by what you see here. For a more in depth explanation of how you can use Multiple Inboxes and its features go here. To just get it working continue reading

4. To get buzzes to appear in your second inbox enter label: buzz into the Search Query box next to Pane 0 and title it “Buzz” or whatever suits you best.
5. This box can quickly get cluttered if step 4 is the only parameter you add. If you’d like to only show buzzes which are not muted, are starred, and/or are unread use this as your search query:
is:starred OR is:unread label: buzz -mute
6. Lastly, you’ll want to position the buzz box in the best place for you. I chose the right side because I operate with a few extra inboxes, but if you’re only doing multiple inboxes for Buzz I suggest placing it above your regular inbox. The number of conversations is up to you and your buzz activity.

Please feel free to add comments below with questions on getting this setup or further help with Multiple Inboxes. If you’d like more specific help with setting up labels, filters, and query strings for Multiple Inboxes, I’d be happy to lend my hand – just contact me here or through my Google profile.

Thanks to Evan Roth and Lifehacker for the idea that inspired this discovery.

Call it an open alpha

Welcome to my blog! I’m not sure how you got here but I’d love to know. The site likely won’t be ready for another month, and when it is it will focus on email marketing and social media. Additional discussions will center around web technologies and trends, other aspects of online and offline marketing, and new business models and economic developments that impact the sphere of the internet marketer and web enthusiast alike.

So please, come back and visit a little further down the road and I promise to have some valuable content for you. In the mean time please connect with me on Twitter or subscribe to my Google Reader Shared Items feed for articles from others on the subjects mentioned above. I’m always looking for new connections so please ping me on twitter, leave a comment below, or message me through my Google Profile.

Update: After a bit of a hiatus I’ve got it all figured out (impossible no?). I’ll soon be blogging for EmailResponsibly but hope to use this as my personal blog for web/tech related content.