So a guy has put together an extension (Chrome browser only) that lets you graph your gmail inbox.
The first one is a graph of the number of times the phrase “meet for coffee” shows up in my inbox.
I left a full time job in April 2008, and you can generally see that I started having a lot more coffee meetings after that. Like, a lot. I clearly drink a lot of coffee.
to:erik@ cityclubtacoma.org
This search was for anyone who emailed my work address (which is forwarded to my gmail account). It’s certainly not a complete picture of City Club emails, since many people just email my gmail account instead, but you can still see a ramp up as I started working (and got the email address) followed by a pretty steady rate of emails. Not much there.
iTunes receipts increase substantially in 2008, thanks to the iPhone app store (see conversations by year at the bottom for a year to year graph). Amazon orders increased in 2008 (not sure why, but I’m guessing I started using Amazon Prime then).
This charts every time Netflix has received a movie from me, so it’s an accurate chart of my netflix usage. This one is actually kind of handy, because Netflix isn’t that interested in giving me this kind of data about my account.
All in all, I could kind of see this being interesting. The ability to use my inbox like a datamine is why I don’t delete any emails–looking up phone numbers, address, etc. But this is another step beyond. I wonder if I’ll actually find it useful.