Gmail Gets Its Own Labs

I guess that many of you are familiar with Google Labs, the website where the search giant offers demos of its projects that aren’t ready for prime time. Google Labs serves also as a testing grounds and a a way for the company to gather feedbacks form the users.

Starting today, Google decided that Gmail should have its own Labs. As Keith Coleman, Product Manager, explained on Gmail official blog, Gmail Labs will present the most interesting ideas from Google’s software engineers.

“People often ask how we decide what to build next. It's usually a mix of factors, like how many users are asking for it (think delete button, vacation responder, and IMAP, among others), how useful we think it will be (think chat, conversation view, etc.) or how much fun it will be to work on (this is actually really important). We have all sorts of debates about each option, we weigh the pros and cons, and then some of the time we probably make the wrong decision,” Coleman wrote

With Gmail Labs, the users could catch a glimpse of some features and decide if they like them or not. The new service is introduced as new tab in the Settings menu of Gmail. For the moment it will be available only for the English users.

Gmail Labs includes alreadt 13 new features such as Quick Links, which lets you save searches and any other views in Gmail, Superstars, which gives you different types of stars and even a game, Old Snakey.

The cod behind those new features have been test only at a basic level, so Coleman offered and escape hatch.

Google has already released some time ago Google Talk, Labs Edition, an experimental release of the Google Talk client. It has many of the same great features as the Google Talk Gadget, including instant messaging, emoticons, and group chat. Google Talk, Labs Edition also comes with new desktop notifications from Calendar, Orkut, and Gmail.

Source: Click Here

Microsoft One-Ups Google with Hotmail Makeover

Over the next few weeks, Microsoft will be pushing out its new Hotmail offering to e-mail users in waves, so anyone who hasn't yet seen the new version can rest assured it will soon be coming. One nice touch, in addition to the bump in storage capacity, is Hotmail's new dashboard, which allows more e-mails to be displayed on the page.

Microsoft Relevant Products/Services is boosting the amount of free storage space that Hotmail users receive to 5 GB. Paying Hotmail users will see their e-mail storage capacity, which costs $15 per year, grow from 4 GB to 10 GB. In contrast, Google currently provides 2.8 GB of free Gmail storage space and sells 6 GB of extra capacity for $20 per year.

When it comes to storage alone, Yahoo remains on top with its unlimited storage offering. But Microsoft is banking that its latest moves to rev-up the Windows Live Hotmail engine and give the service an edgy new dashboard will be enough to keep it ahead of the pack.

"Speed is one of the most important aspects of a Web-based e-mail service," wrote Microsoft Live Hotmail program manager Ellie Powers-Boyle in a recent blog. "We've spent more time in this release identifying what parts of the product are slowest and fixing those."

Makeover Highlights

Over the next few weeks, Microsoft will be pushing out its new Windows Live Hotmail offering to e-mail users in waves, so anyone who hasn't yet seen the new version can rest assured it will soon be coming their way.

One nice touch is Hotmail's new streamlined dashboard, which compresses the header so that more e-mails can be displayed on the page. The new format gives users the ability to automatically tell friends when they will be away on vacation, which has long been a prized feature of Outlook.

Hotmail now blocks images and links in e-mail messages from unknown senders, and provides a one-click way for users to report suspected phishing attacks. Moreover, a contacts de-duplication function is on tap to give users a one-click way to update information for anyone already listed as a contact.

Hotmail subscribers will be able to view their e-mail in either the new or classic versions of Windows Live Hotmail, with the classic version perhaps more appropriate for users with less speedy Internet connections who need a simple way to read and manage e-mail. Moreover, Hotmail users who would prefer to go straight to their e-mail inboxes upon login now have the option of turning off the MSN Today page, Powers-Boyle said.

Looking for the Best Deal

Yankee Group research fellow Laura DiDio said she thinks that Microsoft will have to ensure that Hotmail continues to evolve. "If you are Microsoft, it's not enough to just keep up with the Joneses when Mr. Jones is really Google and he's going after your businesses," DiDio said.

These days, the averagjust as likely to have a Gmail account as a Hotmail account, DiDio noted. However, many consumers no longer believe in customer brand loyalty and will go to the vendor that gives them the best deal and the best support, she said.e consumer is

So Microsoft not only has to do everything it can to keep the customers it already has, but also must continue to play one-up with Google, DiDio explained. The happy result is that consumers will continue to benefit from the contest, she concluded.


Source:www.newsfactor.com

Facebook and social networking sites drive web filtering technology

The latest internet phenomenon, social networking websites offer an interactive network of photos, user profiles, email and chatrooms.

Unlike MySpace, Bebo, Faceparty, YouTube and most other mainstream social networking websites, Facebook is currently favoured amongst young professionals and consequently take-up of the service within the corporate environment has been extremely swift, with many companies creating their own groups on the site.

Although there are undoubtedly some commercial benefits for using the service, particularly for smaller businesses, Facebook in particular relies heavily on email to inform users of new messages received and other activities taking place on site, thereby incentivising users to return to the site again and again for activity updates. With 40%+ of emails at work being non-business related already (IDC research) this adds significantly to un-required traffic.

The sites represents a number of other risks to business, with many staff choosing to use their time online to discuss their employer and air grievances in the public domain. Moreover, with users of social networking sites freely offering personal details to many, there is also an increased risk of identity theft.

As a result, adoption of web filtering technology is currently being largely driven by the phenomenal take up of social networking sites such as Facebook.

Indeed CTOs and IT administrators are increasingly choosing to specifically block access to Facebook, alongside the other chief time-sapping websites – hotmail and gmail. 47% of Email Systems’ web filtering customers have already blocked Facebook as an implicitly selected site and 83% have blocked it by category (social networking). Additionally, Email Systems has identified a trend for blocking viral video sites, such as YouTube, with over 53% of its customers choosing to block this site during work hours and 64% of customers blocking streaming and download video content from its users.

According to a recent survey, nearly one in five companies has disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies in the past year, while 7.1% of companies fired an employee for such infractions and 10% investigated the exposure of financial information via a blog or message board posting in the past year.

With several city firms – including Credit Suisse and Dresdner Kleinwort - having announced a ban on the site earlier this week and many of Email Systems new web filtering customers citing Facebook explicitly as one of the key catalysts for adopting web filtering, the issue is fast becoming a top concern.

It is estimated that over 60% of UK companies have no web filtering in place today. These social sites pose a real threat to business productivity, confidentiality and possibly reputation with many staff often discussing company issues and opinions in public.

According to the DTI: “Inappropriate web and e-mail usage is the second largest cause of reported security incidents”. The same report indicated that 52% of organisations have reported misuse of internet resources with the two most common being access to inappropriate websites (41%) and excessive web surfing (36%).

With child violence sites currently in the headlines as another example of undesirable web-content, Email Systems web filtering service allows customers to block internet access for specific sites, types of sites or users, whilst providing detailed real-time reporting.

Neil Hammerton, CEO of Email Systems commented: “Facebook is a growing concern for many of our customers, mainly because the site is so addictive and encourages constant, repeat usage throughout the day. Clearly many businesses have long considered webmail services to be a significant risk in terms of time, productivity and security – but Facebook is the latest incarnation to really get the industry stirred up.”

Source:www.securitypark.co.uk

Google unveils paid storage

GOOGLE has begun selling expanded online storage, aimed at users with large picture, music or video file collections.
The annual prices established were $US20 ($24) for 6GB of online storage, $US75 for 25GB, $US250 for 100GB and $US500 for 250GB.

Google said the storage could be used across several Google products, including photo site Picasa and the email service Gmail. The storage will soon also work with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, the company's word processing and spreadsheet applications.

Gmail users currently get nearly 3GB of free storage while Picasa users get 1GB. The expanded storage would kick in when a user runs out of free storage in a particular service.

Yahoo and AOL already offer unlimited free storage for their email services.

Google has been adding about 145MB of free storage to each email account annually - a pace that would raise storage limits to more than 3.25GB in three years. Instead of matching Yahoo and AOL, Google decided instead to charge for additional storage to users with extraordinary needs.

Most users, however, don't even come close to reaching the free storage limits.

Source:www.australianit.news.com.au