Sliced bread has found it's match

For me, there are a lot of things that fit this category. Yours will undoubtedly be different from mine, but you should be able to relate to these things and understand the feelings behind it based on your own experiences.

Couple of examples: upgrading from dialup to broadband, going from regular TV to TV with a DVR, going from a hardwired phone to a cellphone, upgrading from standard definition TV to HD, etc.

Once you go, you can't go back. It just doesn't happen. The thought of it makes you twitch. Maybe some are more severe than others like living with a regular TV in a bedroom while your home theater system has a DVR, but the feeling is still there. So, what am I adding to the list?

Threaded email.

Yeah, I know. You probably think I'm crazy, but try it and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I've made several other posts about our transition to using Google Apps for email (the other services are nice, but email is where it's at) so my opinions about this are based on my experience using Gmail. There are a few small features that Google has added to Gmail which makes this concept even better, but the threaded conversation is where it's at.

I don't have the most stable sleep schedule in the world. People that I communicate often with normally don't expect me to be available at a certain time of the day and usual just base it off of how long my IM client shows I've been idle. Because of this, it might be "late morning" (after lunch) by the time I'm sitting down for the first time to get my day rolling. Often times, someone with a lot more self-discipline starts an email conversation between 3 or 4 people at the start of the day and a few emails have already circled around with thoughts or add-ons by the time I can look at it. Typically, you'd have a few emails in your inbox that you'd have to read.

If you sort by date received, you find the bottom one that's still bold and read them one by one working your way up. Because they aren't grouped by topic (or email subject), you might be reading through 2 or 3 different conversations at once, or you're reading an email and scanning up the list to find the next with a similar subject to read it.

When using a program with threading capabilities, you have 1 -conversation- to read. When you select that subject, it brings up the body of all of those emails in a neat list so you can easily read what's been said while you weren't around. Now, you can quickly reply knowing that you're up-to-date on the conversation instead of replying to an old email that doesn't need answering anymore (I can't even count how many times this has happened to me).

2 additional pieces that make Gmail's service extra-useful with conversations: 1) use of labels, and 2) quote hiding.

Labels work like a typical "folder" would in Outlook or other program, except labels are more "web 2.0". Just like you can't put a piece of paper into multiple folders at once, you can't put an email into multiple folders at once. With labels, you can assign any number of labels to an email to keep yourself organized.

Quote hiding is the big feature for me. Typically, when someone replies to your email, their message is included at the top and what you originally wrote is included in the bottom. Gmail will automatically recognize those sections of the email and hide them from your view (there's a link you can click to make them show if needed). That way, even if the "true" email back to you includes replies of replies of replies of replies, Gmail will hide those so you only see the new text and can easily read through the entire conversation.

I highly recommend you at least give it a shot. Gmail has a lot of email management features like those mentioned above that make it a great email client (I've used Gmail's web interface exclusively since changing over to Google Apps) but I know other email clients may have similar features like that as well.

If you know of another program that you like that's integrated this concept, post a comment. I'm always willing to try something new that might be better than what I've got.

UPDATE: I found a good screenshot of Gmail's system showing the threaded view along with the view of all conversations.