Likes, Mentions coming to Outlook on the web

PanARMENIAN.Net - Microsoft is about to make email a little bit more like social media and hopefully cut down the number of messages in your inbox in the process, PC Magazine reports.

“We show our approval by 'Liking' a friend's status update on Facebook and we '@Mention' others in a Twitter post to call attention to it,” the Outlook team wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “We're taking the next step and introducing Like and @Mention to workplace email in Outlook on the Web.”

The Like feature is now available for Office 365 First Release users whose plan includes Exchange Online and will make its way to all Office 365 commercial users in late October. The Mention feature will arrive for First Release users in mid-October before rolling out more broadly in mid-November.

The new Like feature lets you quickly endorse a specific email or call it out as something notable, Microsoft said. To Like a message, just click the little thumbs-up icon in the reading pane. This will turn the icon from gray to blue and add a thumbs-up in the email list view. Anyone on a thread can Like a message, and Outlook will send you a notification if someone likes your email.

Mentions, meanwhile, can be used to assign a job to a specific person or add someone else to an existing thread.

"Perhaps you are on a thread and know that the person who can answer a question was not initially included," the Outlook team wrote. "Using the Mentions feature ensures that the person is not only aware of the request but is also included in the thread."