I was thinking it might be worthwhile if we had the option to mark PMs as unread.
Like emails, there are sometimes when I get a pm and open it up to get the jist of it. Sometimes I want to notify myself to read it in detail later, or to write a reply after some thought.
I believe other people may do this, too, particularly if they're working together on projects, so I thought I'd throw it out there as a suggestion.