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Gmail Chat & AIM Are Now Interoperable

May 20th, 2011

Image via CrunchBase

AOL and Google have taken their instant messaging partnership to a whole new level with complete interoperability between AIM, Gmail and Google Talk.

Gmail users have been able to access their AIM account through Google Talk since 2007, but AIM accounts couldn’t message Google Talk accounts and vice versa. The juggling of two different IM accounts has limited the usefulness of AIM within Gmail. Google announced inblog post though that the two companies have made some interoperability changes to their chat clients.

The first big change is that AIM users can now send messages to their Google contacts and vice versa. This works no matter what client a person is using, so they can IM a friend that uses AIM via Google Talk, Gmail, iGoogle, Orkut or any other Gtalk client. Gmail users will now see a prompt asking them to add their AIM buddies directly to Gtalk. Users will have to add @aol.com to the end of the AIM contact they are trying to add to make it work (e.g. [email protected]).

Because users can add AIM contacts directly through Gmail, Google has removed the ability to sign in via AIM. This would normally be a problem for Google users that have hundreds of AIM contacts in their Gmail chat client, but AOL has created a tool to help them quickly add their AIM buddies to Gmail.

The changes may not affect users immediately, but they are big changes. AOL and Google have tens of millions of instant messenging users each. Combining their user bases makes both chat platforms far more useful, which could help them fend off their competition. They need to worry about Facebook, whose FbChat service has grown in popularity, and Skype, which has more than 500 million users and is now owned by Microsoft.

Source :- http://mashable.com

Related articles
  • Gmail Chat & AIM Are Now Interoperable (mashable.com)
  • Changes and improvements to AIM interoperability (gmailblog.blogspot.com)
  • Google Talk and AIM to Become Interoperable (googlesystem.blogspot.com)
  • Google Talk and AIM to Become Interoperable (mt-soft.com.ar)
  • AIM & Google Talk To Become Interoperable [News] (makeuseof.com)
  • AIM Google Talk Federation now live (pidgin.im)
  • GTalk and AIM users can now chat to each other without logging into both services (thenextweb.com)
  • Soon, AOL’s AIM Won’t Require A Separate Login To Chat With Contacts In Gmail (techcrunch.com)
  • PSA: AIM and Google Talk Can Now Talk To Each Other; All 9 AIM Users Are Essited (androidpolice.com)
  • AIM, Google Talk integration starts working (electronista.com)
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Gmail enables Sending emails in Background

April 26th, 2011

Shows warning in case of any error to fix it

Google’s Gmail Labs is known for making nifty tweaks to the email service and thereby making it more efficient. This time, Google has added a new Background Send feature in Gmail Labs that lets users carry on with other tasks while the emails will continue being sent in background.

New Background Send feature can be enabled by accessing the Gmail Labs options available in Settings. Once you’ve enabled it, all you have to do is hit Send after you’ve composed an email and then carry on checking other emails.

Here’s a condition which indeed is important – browser tab/window needs to be active while sending email. Means you need to be logged in and must have an active connection. Enabling Background Send, hitting Send button and then simply shutting down the PC or Mac won’t guarantee that your mail has been sent.

In case the recipients address is not correct or if there’s any other issue while sending an email in background, Gmail will show a warning message on top of your Inbox. The warning message will offer you an option to fix it instantly or fix it later. On a successful dispatch of messages, user will receive text – your message has been sent, just above the Inbox.

What we can notice here is that slowly, Gmail is acting like a proper application with background sending of messages. Though it’s not more of a visual effect, it’s still quite an implementation.

Source :- Techtree Blog

Related Articles
  • Gmail Labs Brings Background Send, Now Send an Email While Reading Other Mail Conversations (techie-buzz.com)
  • Gmail Can Now Send Messages In the Background (googletutor.com)
  • Gmail Labs Now Offers Tool to Speed Up Your Email (readwriteweb.com)
  • Gmail lets you manage other mail while your messages are sending (isiria.wordpress.com)
  • New in Labs: Background Send (gmailblog.blogspot.com)
  • Google Gmail Speeds Up with Background Sending (searchenginejournal.com)
  • Gmail Now Lets You Send Messages in the Background (newsgrange.com)
  • Google introduces Background Send to Gmail (thenextweb.com)
  • Gmail Smart Recipients Suggestion and Correction Features Live for All (mydigitallife.info)
  • 6 Ways To Be More Productive With Your Gmail Account (thenextweb.com)
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Tags: Email client Gmail Labs Mail

Gmail gets Background Customization Feature

April 16th, 2011

Now, customize your Inbox

Google has added yet another eye-candy feature to its web-based email service – Gmail. Over two years ago, Google had added themes in Gmail which certainly impressed several users, geeks and Gmail loyalists. Today onwards, Google will let you customize your Gmail with any image or your own custom image for the background. Yes, you can customize your Gmail with Kelly Clarkson‘s wallpaper, Dark Knight Rises Poster, or even a photo of your own. Wonder why took Gmail so long to introduce this feature.

Do note that adding a huge image to your Gmail background might make your web browser a wee bit slower. To customize background image on Gmail, go to Themes Tabs in Settings or just click here to go there directly in Gmail.

In the Themes tab, the last option is “Create your own theme” where you must click and a pop-up window will show up. Over there, you’ll get a wireframe like snapshot of your Gmail, where you can customize the different areas with the colors of your choice. Click on the small box on top left corner of that window to give you a drop-down menu about colors and an option to upload image.

Check out the image below to find the upload image option where in you can pull image from Picasa or upload directly from your computer.

Source -: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Gmail_gets_Background_Customization_Feature/551-115096-643.html

Related Articles
  • Add Background Image to Gmail: Design your Own Theme (geniusgeeks.com)
  • “Make Your Own Gmail Theme with Custom Background Image” and related posts (tech-buzz.net)
  • Google adds custom background image themes to Gmail (thenextweb.com)
  • Choose Your Own Image as Gmail Background (lockergnome.com)
  • Now You Can Select Your Own Image As a Background in Gmail (mashable.com)
  • Gmail Updates Themes, Recipient Suggestions (webpronews.com)
  • GMail adds custom backgrounds, recipient check failsafes (inquisitr.com)
  • Customize your own inbox! Background images in Gmail Themes now available (googleappsupdates.blogspot.com)
  • Now You Can Personalize Gmail With Your Own Wallpaper (businessinsider.com)
  • Custom background image themes (gmailblog.blogspot.com)
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Tags: Image Kelly Clarkson Pop-up ad Webmail

Facebook Comments, Now On Over 50K Sites, Get More Social With Latest Upgrade

April 14th, 2011

Facebook Comments, which people either love or hate, have just been amped up by Facebook, to increase the ever elusive “user engagement,” which just means get more traffic. We’ve been using Facebook Comments for about a month, and I am personally thrilled at the improved quality of discussion, despite being bothered by annoyances like not being able to edit into comments.

According to Facebook, Facebook Comments are now on over 50,000 websites including us, NBC and Hotels.com. Sure Hotels.com is a start, Facebook’s got a long way to go if it wants to dominate the commenting space. While it made some needed adjustments today, there’s still more work that needs to be done.

Here are the new features added in today’s upgrade:

Permalinking

Users can now access each comment by its permalink, allowing users to share and a respond to specific comments more easily. Comment notifications in the Facebook newsfeed also direct back to specific comments, which is awesome because the alternative is pretty disorienting.

Comments API

Facebook is also providing an API so site owners can search and rank their comments, like highlight interesting and popular comments, reward top commenters or segment comments around a specific topic, like Apple or startups.

More social context in the newsfeed

Developers now also have the option of adding meta-tags to include more information about a story in commenters Facebook newsfeeds, including any images involved, title and description. Facebook holds that this optimization will increase click through because users will feel more drawn to specific stories.

Darker color scheme

Facebook is also offering a darker color scheme for darker websites, so developers with darker sites don’t have to have mismatched commenting systems. I’m actually pretty surprised no one thought of this sooner.

For trolls people clamoring for alternate ways to log in, Hotmail accounts have been added as a third-party login option along with Aol and Yahoo, but more interestingly there’s no mention of adding Gmail and Twitter which were slated to also be options pre-launch and then somehow mysteriously disappeared.

Great. So those without a Facebook account are good to login if they’re planning on doing so from 1998. See what I mean about “more work that still needs to be done”?

Source -: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/facebook-comments-now-on-over-50k-sites-get-more-social-with-latest-upgrade/

Related Articles
  • Facebook Comments, Now On Over 50K Sites, Get More Social With Latest Upgrade (techcrunch.com)
  • Adding new features to Comments Box (developers.facebook.com)
  • With More Features & Login Options, is Facebook Comments a Disqus Killer? (lockergnome.com)
  • Facebook Comments Plugin Added to 50,000 Sites In a Month, Updates Launched (webpronews.com)
  • Facebook Comments Plugin Gets New Features and Support for Hotmail Logins (newsgrange.com)
  • Facebook Upgrades Its Commenting System (allfacebook.com)
  • Facebook Updates Comments Box Plugin With Comment Exporting and Larger News Feed Stories (insidefacebook.com)
  • Facebook: Our Comments Plugin Increases Publisher Traffic up to 45% [STATS] (readwriteweb.com)
  • Facebook: Our Comments Plugin Increases Publisher Traffic Up to 45% [STATS] (nytimes.com)
  • Facebook Comments update adds Hotmail login (thenextweb.com)
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Google Apologizes for Not Protecting User Privacy

April 4th, 2011

It is now liable for independent reviews of its privacy procedures every two years for the next two decades

Last year, Google Buzz was blamed for failing to protect user data and accessing contacts books of users.

Google Appliance as shown at RSA Expo 2008 in ...

Image via Wikipedia

Google Buzz social network built inside Gmail turned out to be first ever privacy

protection horror for the company. Now, Google has finally

made peace with the Federal Trade Commission and apologized for the mistakes made with the Buzz service and ensured that the new privacy procedures would protect the interests of users. Too late for it, I suppose, as several users must have already stopped using it.

Privacy Group had filed a complaint with the FTC accusing Google for following ‘deceptive privacy practices’. The FTC stated that Google has violated the FTC Act by not informing the users about the privacy measures and didn’t offer them an option to decline or leave the social network service. Also, Google failed to obtain user’s permission to enable Buzz social network in advance.

Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC, said in the release: “This is a tough settlement that ensures that Google will honor its commitments to consumers and build strong privacy protections into all of its operations.”

Alma Whitten, Direct of Privacy (Product & Engineering) with Google, stated on its official blog:

Today, we’ve reached an agreement with the FTC to address their concerns. We’ll receive an independent review of our privacy procedures once every two years, and we’ll ask users to give us affirmative consent before we change how we share their personal information.

Google will implement a new privacy program and will also be liable for independent reviews of the privacy procedures every two years for the next two decades. WHOA! That’s a big one. So basically, Google goofed up over privacy, accepted its mistake and is now moving on.

Recently, Facebook‘s privacy debacle forced it to create a simplified privacy policy. We hope both the giants will ensure not to goof up on users privacy anymore.

Related Articles
  • Google Settles With FTC Over Privacy Concerns and “Deceptive Tactics” of Google Buzz (fastcompany.com)
  • Google Buzz Agreement Reached With FTC (webpronews.com)
  • What the Google Buzz-FTC Settlement Means for the “Apology Approach” to Innovation (fastcompany.com)
  • Google settles FTC complaint over Buzz (macworld.com)
  • Social Irony: FTC Rules on Buzz Privacy Stampede (marketingpilgrim.com)
  • Google settles Buzz privacy case with FTC, apologizes (downloadsquad.switched.com)
  • Google settles FTC complaint over Buzz (infoworld.com)
  • FTC To Audit Google Regularly Following Buzz Investigation (inquisitr.com)
  • Google Settles FTC Complaint over Google Buzz Privacy (pcworld.com)
  • Google apologises for Buzz privacy issues (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
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Tags: Jon Leibowitz