I'm with Mr. Manjoo here. Check out that screenshot -- it looks like an interface nightmare similar to AOL in the 90's. Where are my eyes supposed to go? What do I click on? Personally, I find this a noted departure from the simplicity I like in Google's other products -- this looks more like outlook than it does gmail.

I'm also curious about the potential use cases for such a tool. I can see students using this a lot, I guess, but I don't know if I see anything compelling enough to make me change the way I use email.