Microsoft Outlook users can take advantage of an email outbox filter, ToneCheck, that “works as a sort of emotional spell-check” to prevent e-missive disasters. ToneCheck is a welcome update to Civility Check 1.0, aka. MoodWatch, which was only available on Eudora, an email program with a dwindling user base. It’s also different that Google’s Mail Goggles that requires users to complete some computational problems before they send questionable messages.
(With ToneCheck) if the content of a message exceeds a preset threshold for negative emotions like anger or sadness, the e-mailer is confronted with a warning and a chance to revise. Drawing on the opinions of thousands of people who have been paid to evaluate the emotional charge of various phrases, the software can also detect unseemly levels of positive emotions like affection or elation.
The company that makes it cites a psychology study claiming that half of all email messages are misinterpreted. What about blog posts?
