Seriosity launches e-mail management system

Seriosity, a California-based software company, has developed a system to help companies manage e-mail overload.

Unwanted e-mail can take up a lot of employee’s time and Seriosity’s solution, known as Attent, aims to help workers prioritise the e-mails they send and receive.

The system is based on the virtual economies and currencies used in the ‘World of Warcraft’ and other large-scale online games.

The Attent system uses a new currency called the Serio, which corporate e-mail users spend to indicate a message’s importance. The more important they think the message is, the more Serios they spend on it. The recipient of an email keeps the Serios attached to it.

Also, when a message is received with Serios attached, the recipient can indicate how important they think it is by responding with a low number if they think the message is of low importance, an equal number if they want the sender to know they appreciated the message or more than the original number to indicate a highly important message.

Users receive a limited number of Serios as a weekly allowance and therefore have to spend the currency wisely in order not to run out before the end of the week. Everyone in a company would receive the same allowance, but managers would accumulate more of the currency because they receive more messages.

Users are able to sort messages by the number of Serios attached, providing an easy way to prioritise them.

Seriosity anticipates that the system could eventually be used to manage the allocation of other resources such as parking spaces, equipment or for prioritization of IT resources.