VentureBeat

Yahoo confirms that it’s buying Xoopit

Yahoo just published a blog post confirming yesterday’s reports that it plans to buy Xoopit, the startup that adds social and media-sharing tools to email .

What’s the reasoning? Well, if Yahoo’s post is to be believed, this deal is all about photos:

With the integration of Xoopit’s platform technology and capabilities, the task of sending photos via email will be as easy as it should be and sharing photo albums with friends and family members will… Continue Reading

Report: Yahoo acquires Xoopit; will Yahoo Mail get even more social?

Yahoo is about to acquire Xoopit, a startup that brings social tools into email programs like Yahoo Mail and Gmail, for $20 million, according to multiple press reports.

The Wall Street Journal and BoomTown (both owned by Dow Jones, incidentally) have reported on the deal — the WSJ says talks are in their final stages, but BoomTown says the deal is done. I’ve emailed Yahoo, Xoopit, and Xoopit investor Accel Partners; Yahoo and Accel say they’re… Continue Reading

Xoopit syncs Gmail with Facebook status updates: Neat, but useful?

Here’s a new way to get social context about your friends while you’re busy with email. Xoopit, a company that makes a Firefox browser add-on for Gmail, now also lets you both update your Facebook status while in Gmail and see your friends’ status updates when you’re reading email from them.

Sure, many people prefer other browsers and email programs. What’s interesting here is that Xoopit is using newly-available, two-way integration with Facebook status updates, through… Continue Reading

How big an opportunity is the external memory?

Before the advent of the written word, the story goes, humans had to either store all their memories in their own heads, or by oral tradition passed down through designated members of their tribes. With trade came notation of facts and figures, and later alphabets, books and libraries. With them came the modern brain, which treats recorded knowledge as an extension of itself.

Throughout these developments, previous generations have grumbled that each new advance leaves us… Continue Reading

Xoopit continues to supercharge Gmail with new media search as Zenbe flies solo. Who’s gonna win?

Two young web-mail startups, Zenbe and Xoopit, have set out to rewrite the rules of web-mail. They see today’s leading web-mail services as dinosaurs, mired in the bureaucratic inertia of the sluggish internet titans that control them.

And they might be right. Sure, in major overhauls last year, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL added some horsepower and storage and pulled off some elegant face-lifts. Sure, the new Gmail runs faster, supports IMAP, and offers a contact manager… Continue Reading

Xoopit adds social components to email, connects your email media to the web

Xoopit wants to help you more easily distribute your photos, videos and files — and taps into your social network through your email account to do so.

The San Francisco-based company is in private beta, and it has a few components. It’s a plugin for Firefox that works in Gmail, it’s also a free-standing site and an iGoogle widget. Here’s the gist of how it works in Gmail (VentureBeat readers can get invites at the bottom… Continue Reading

Four startups ready to change the face of email

In ten years, an internet eternity, web-based email has only made token improvements, moving from Hotmail to Gmail. Meanwhile, instant messaging and social networks have rapidly developed.

Four new startups, all of which came out of secrecy this year, point toward a bright new future for email. These oddly-named saviors — Fuser, Orgoo, Xobni and Xoopit — have a simple goal. They want to centralize communication, and they want to give it structure and meaning.

Power users… Continue Reading