Gmail users will soon have more ways to keep up with their friends via a widget that shows quick status updates like Facebook and Twitter do, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The move would further turn Gmail, which revolutionized online e-mail, into a comprehensive communications hub. The intent is to keep peoples attention centered on Google, by making Gmail, not Facebook, peoples first stop online and their default place to send and receive messages. Gmail users can already chat via Jabber or AIM, make video calls, and send SMS messages from Gmails web interface.
Google has been trying to fashion Gmail into more than an e-mail service for years. The service currently lets users set an away message, which can be a link to a Web page, that their friends see when they instant-message them. Now, it plans to launch a new interface that will aggregate updates from more friends in a stream.
The new stream will also eventually include content that a users connections share through its YouTube video site and Picasa photo service, according to one person familiar with the matter. But whether those features will also be announced in the coming days remains unclear.
The full extent of the new features remain unclear, but Google is inviting reporters to a launch event Tuesday on its Mountain View, California, campus promising some innovations in two of our most popular products, according to an e-mail sent to reporters.
The move would further turn Gmail, which revolutionized online e-mail, into a comprehensive communications hub. The intent is to keep peoples attention centered on Google, by making Gmail, not Facebook, peoples first stop online and their default place to send and receive messages. Gmail users can already chat via Jabber or AIM, make video calls, and send SMS messages from Gmails web interface.
Google has been trying to fashion Gmail into more than an e-mail service for years. The service currently lets users set an away message, which can be a link to a Web page, that their friends see when they instant-message them. Now, it plans to launch a new interface that will aggregate updates from more friends in a stream.
The new stream will also eventually include content that a users connections share through its YouTube video site and Picasa photo service, according to one person familiar with the matter. But whether those features will also be announced in the coming days remains unclear.
The full extent of the new features remain unclear, but Google is inviting reporters to a launch event Tuesday on its Mountain View, California, campus promising some innovations in two of our most popular products, according to an e-mail sent to reporters.
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