Comment 2 for bug 540181

Possibly, but Artem also mentions the sounds annoyance. Maybe a good solution for that is to play the sound only once in a minute as long as there are unread messages. So, until the user read all unread messages, the sound is played. Maybe the user should be able to change this time interval in the interface as some people might prefer or need longer or shorter intervals.

Related idea: it could be a good idea to play the sound multiple times or alter the tone and/or loudness of the sound based on the number of unread messages. For instance, consider this example:
* 1 new unread message --> Do (from the music scale)
* (one minute later) 2 unread messages --> Do
* (two minutes later) 5 unread messages --> Re
* (three minutes later) 10 unread messages --> Mi

It also can be like this (loudness):
* 1 new unread message --> ping
* (one minute later) 2 unread messages --> ping
* (two minutes later) 5 unread messages --> ping!
* (three minutes later) 10 unread messages --> PING

Or like this (playing the sound different times):
* 1 new unread message --> ping
* (one minute later) 2 unread messages --> ping
* (two minutes later) 5 unread messages --> ping,ping
* (three minutes later) 10 unread messages --> ping,ping,ping

it also can be a good idea to combine both the music scale differentiation and the loudness differentiation. The music scale then indicates the number of unread messages, whilst the loudness indicates the age of the oldest message. If you are far away from your desk and still hear the sound because it became so loud, you know at least one contact is waiting on your reply for multiple minutes. You then know you have to hurry you because she may become impatient. Based on the music scale, you also have an indication of the number of contacts who tried to contact you during your absence.