Priority inbox on google mail, sorts the most important mail and categorises them separately so you know which ones you should read first. These e-mails are placed at the top of the inbox, and all the less important e-mails are sent further down the list so they are read last. This feature could be extremely important to users who use one G-Mail account both for work and personal use; it can ensure that important documents related to work are prioritised and can be responded to first. If you want to get back to an important message later you can mark it with a star so it is easy to spot, and is placed into another folder where mail is not deleted and can be read in the future. This could be essential to employees who need to refer frequently back to E-Mails after they've read them without worrying that important information may be deleted after a certain period of time. Tools like this are ways to help us avoid 'Information Overload'; a term "refers to the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information" Wikipedia. This term was used to describe the influx of technological inventions and improvements in the early 21st century which provided people with opportunities they had never had before.
G-Mail offers one of the most effective Spam-Blockers available on the Internet E-Mail services at this time; it uses a variety of methods to try and eradicate the number of Spam messages that make it through their blockers. The above image shows clearly just how effective this is, the percentage of these spam messages is less than 1%- a remarkable comparison to the 70% prevalence of spam. Google believes "Though in many cases our best weapon is you." This is essential in their effective spam blocking; users vote with clicks to report certain email as spam. The system then learns from this feedback as to which messages are actually spam ad helps them to be eradicated from all users' inboxes. This extremely prevalent spam blocker is essential to people who use Gmail for work purposes and can't have potential viruses in their inbox or folder or don't want hundreds of spam messages amongst work emails. Spam is often disguised as messages from banks or building societies asking for personal details; these details are used by scammers to access your bank account- these can be extremely damaging to a person and good spam blockers can stop them even being read by you. 
G-Mail also has filters which can identify the sender of the e-mail; therefore you can set a filter to automatically put a star next to messages from important people which you may need to read quickly. G-Mail has already got a really effective Spam Blocker; however it also has the technology to track which Emails you actually read and block E-mails from senders whom you never open. It can also record whether you read or reply to an Email; these Senders will move higher up on the Priority List and fall into the 'Important' folder. If this feature is malfunctioning you also have the option to manually manage your account, choosing your own Important senders and E-mails. However for a system like this to work effectively and for it to be able to read your patterns and systems accurately it requires a frequent use; this enables the system to pick up and sort out your E-Mails specifically to you. 
Gmail also holds host to a chat service that allows you to communicate with online contacts that are added to your Email address book; the option is situated to the side of the page so it does not interfere with you checking your emails. You can see your online contacts with small green dots to the left of their names and all other offline contacts are represented by grey icons. You can also choose to 'appear offline' so that you can see who is online but others cannot see you; so you can stop unwanted conversations being initiated. You are also able to invite, search or add contacts in a small search bar above your contact list; this can enable you to encourage others to sign up to a Gmail account and increases the popularity of the site.
Advantages:
- Faster than other competing Email services
- An extremely effective spam blocker that does exactly what it says it does
- Ever expanding space to suit everyone's space needs
- Replies are stored as one conversation so you can view the whole conversation that has occured between you without looking at past emails. Also, it doesn't create a new email so less space is wasted.
- You can search your emails for keywords, so you can always find what you're looking for
Disadvantages:
- Sacrifices privacy; Google searches for keywords used in your emails and related advertisements appear depending on the subject of the mail. A reviewer on one online site said "Might as well be called ' Big Brother' "
- Limitations on attachments.
News Stories:
Glitch in system means that everytime a G-Mail inbox is opened, music starts playing; “Whenever I sign into my Gmail using Chrome, music automatically starts playing. This is a new issue. It's like old time dance music,”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/01/gmail_priority_inbox_jazz_hands/
Over 1 million calls were made via the G-Mail Voice function in the first 24 hours of it's release.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7966800/Gmail-phone-service-used-to-place-1m-calls-Google-says.html
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