Won't be long before GMail is a full mail, discussion, chat, social-network service.
Google to make Gmail a little more social by Tom Krazil, Webware (Feb 8)
"Gmail users can already set their status within the service, but Google plans to expand that into a stream of status updates found in services like Facebook and Twitter, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. Users will also be able to share photos and videos through the service, which is expected to launch shortly."
5 Hopes for a More Social Gmail by Ian Paul, PCWorld
Dream on - "Google should build on already popular social networking tools (Facebook and Twitter) rather than trying to convince users to build a Google-centric network."
Google to get social, report says, by Juan Carols Perez, itWorldCanada
Fierce competition. AOL, Yahoo and Google are trying to become full social networking sites - ala Facebook, but users think of Google and Yahoo in terms of the apps - IM, Email. For they complete experience they go to Facebook. Will users completely switch to Facebook, or will they use many services?
"Facebook is increasingly seen as a serious Google competitor, as Facebook has broadened its scope of services and offerings into Google areas. For example, people increasingly search the Web from within Facebook using Microsoft's Bing engine. Meanwhile, many news publishers are also delivering their content within Facebook, rivaling the Google News article aggregation site. Facebook also provides internal messaging and IM capabilities, as well as photo and video sharing features."
Frankly, there is no way that the news you can get through Facebook updates comes anywhere close to the breadth of coverage and features at Google News or Yahoo News.
Posted by Gwen at February 9, 2010 02:57 PM