Larry Page wasn’t lying about the Google+ engagement numbers

Google+ is a social network that is being built backwards. Hundreds of millions of people rely on Google, but not its social network. That makes things awkward in a lot of ways, and certainly Google’s efforts to find a foothold in the social space have seemed, until recently, feeble or forced.

But while my colleague Rocky Agrawal is right that companies often try to woo journalists and their audience with misleading numbers, I think Larry … Continue Reading

Email off the clock constitutes overtime — in Brazil

Answer an email from your employer after your work day is over and you’re eligible for overtime pay — but only if you’re a Brazilian citizen, that is.

The worker-friendly amendment was added to the country’s labor code and approved by Brazil President Dilma Rousseff in December.

“[The legislation] says that company emails to workers are equivalent to orders given directly to the employee,” the Associated Press reported. “Labor attorneys told the Folha de Sao … Continue Reading

Contactually surfaces the most important relationships in your inbox

Your love-hate relationship with email could skew more toward the love end of the spectrum in the new year if one startup has anything to say about the matter.

Contactually launches Thursday to help email senders better prioritize their action items and manage relationships.

The company has created a dashboard that connects to multiple IMAP email accounts such as Gmail, Google Apps and Yahoo, as well as customer relationship management products Salesforce or Highrise, to … Continue Reading

What most of us will be doing on holidays: Checking our work email

The holidays are a time for good food, gathering with loved ones, frantic trips to overcrowded malls and paid time-off from work — well almost. A majority of the U.S. workforce will be checking their work email over holidays this year, according to a new study.

More than two-thirds (68 percent) of employed adults in the U.S. check their work email on traditional holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and 27 percent of those who … Continue Reading

Leaked Gmail redesign looks a lot like Facebook’s Message inbox

Google accidentally published a YouTube video today that introduced some big changes to its popular email product Gmail.

In the video, which is now marked as private, Gmail user experience Designer Jason Cornwell says, “We’ve completely redesigned the look and feel of Gmail to make it as clean, simple and intuitive as possible.” For the most part, this is true based on the images in the demo.

The overall design is largely taken from a … Continue Reading

Facebook tests new condensed email notifications without consent

Facebook is testing new email notifications that summarize all profile activity, reports Inside Facebook.

The company will begin testing the new summary email on users who currently generate a large number of notification emails. Those in the test will also have their email notification account settings automatically changed to toggle off all alert options except for the summary email.

While the change in email notification settings is no doubt aimed at reducing inbox clutter for … Continue Reading

Google says Google+ integration for Gmail is coming; users sound off

Google’s popular email product Gmail is about to get much more social.

The company is forging ahead with plans to add a social layer to Gmail by adding integration with its new social service, Google+, according to Gmail engineering manager Mark Striebeck.

In a public message via Google+, Striebeck asked users for responses to the following three questions:

What email features would make it easier to interact with Google+?
How could we integrate Google+ features

… Continue Reading

500 Startups jumps into Twitter-like mail startup Shortmail’s $750K funding round

410 Labs, maker of a Twitter-like email app called Shortmail that limits email messages to 500 characters or less, announced today that it has raised $750,000 from super-angel Dave McClure’s 500 Startups seed funding firm and others.

The messages sent by — and to — Shortmail accounts are limited to 500 characters or less. That’s designed to keep messages short and simple and also filter out longer spam messages.

The company did not go through … Continue Reading

Bin Laden relied on thumb drive couriers to evade email detection

Osama bin Laden used a simple but clever way to send lots of emails without being detected by the U.S., the Associated Press reports.

Citing interviews with counter-terrorism sources in the U.S. government, the AP said that bin Laden used thumb drives, the flash memory sticks that can hold a considerable number of email messages, to send his emails.

Bin Laden had no phone, and his own computer wasn’t connected to the internet. (That helped … Continue Reading

Gmail implodes for 150,000 users (updated)

Around 150,000 Gmail users woke up to a nasty surprise over the weekend: their Gmail accounts — including email, chats, attachments and contacts — had disappeared into the cloud, the Huffington Post reports.

It could have been worse for Google. Initial estimates had placed around 500,000 users with Gmail account trouble, but Google later revised that number to 150,000, or less than .08 .02 percent of Gmail users. The company is aware of the issues, … Continue Reading

Hotmail introduces aliases to create temporary email addresses

Microsoft has enabled the use of aliases its widely-used Hotmail email service. The new feature enables Hotmail users to add temporary email addresses in situations when they do not wish to use their personal, or every-day email address.

According to Windows Live director of product management Dharmesh Mehta, the move is really about pushing Microsoft’s email beyond the competition.

And when he says “competition”, he means Google.

Aliases are a nifty way of routing one-time … Continue Reading

Yahoo Mail singled out as Windows Phone 7 data vampire (updated)

Windows Phone 7 users can blame Yahoo Mail for their mysteriously high 3G data usage, the company revealed to Windows Phone Secrets yesterday.

Microsoft didn’t admit Yahoo was the problem until Within Windows’ Rafael Rivera did some sleuthing and confirmed that Yahoo’s mail server was sending around 25 times as much data as it needed to. Previously, Microsoft would only say that an unnamed third-party was the root of the issue.

Many thought that Microsoft … Continue Reading

NudgeMail gains momentum after teaming up with Google Calendar

Inbox “un-clutterer” NudgeMail now has tens of thousands of users within the first three months of its launch, with a significant gain this week that CEO Jeremy Toeman told VentureBeat is likely due to the startup’s recently announced integration with Google’s much-used Google Calendar.

“We’re really excited about the gCal integration, as it was one of the most-requested features from our users,” Toeman told me. “With NudgeMail on gCal not only do existing NudgeMail users … Continue Reading

Microsoft jams JavaScript from partners in its Hotmail messages

Microsoft, looking for a way to differentiate itself from other Web email services, has allowed a select group of companies to include JavaScript code in email messages that will introduce new functions, potentially opening up a fertile new canvas for marketers.

That can involve bringing in Orbitz flight and hotel search functions directly into the email message, or Monster’s job search engine. Microsoft also plans to partner up with Netflix and LinkedIn, giving Hotmail users … Continue Reading

Email: The hottest revenue generation technology in social media

I’ve got a really hot tip for all you folks out there on the Interwebs. It’s amazing. And no one knows about it.

You see, the latest red-hot technology, the keys to the proverbial kingdom, the ultimate cash-cow money machine isn’t what you think it is. No, it’s not social media. It’s not even behavioral or targeted ads. The ultimate killer-app money machine is….email. And Groupon proves it.

Say what? Hear me out, folks.

Exhibit … Continue Reading

Google to lure enterprise users by copying Microsoft Exchange data to the cloud

Google announced today that it is launching a service called Google Message Community that will serve as disaster insurance for Microsoft Exchange users, backing up their email and contact data into Google applications.

The search giant isn’t one to shy away from pulling business from Microsoft and its Exchange products. In fact, it even offers a service to directly transition from Exchange over to Google’s enterprise applications.

So why is Google warming up to Microsoft … Continue Reading

You've got mail — still? How AOL failed to catch Facebook

Oh, AOL. The Internet giant, in mid-turnaround under CEO Tim Armstrong, can’t help but seem a bit bumbly still.

Take, for example, its announcement that it had recently revamped its AOL Mail system as part of an overall makeover of the company’s products. It might have seen like a thunder-stealing move to unveil the new AOL Mail on Sunday, amid heavy buzz about a planned Facebook announcement Monday — had Facebook not revealed a messaging … Continue Reading

Battle for your texts: Facebook Messages vs. Kik mobile chat

Facebook can’t remind us enough that its new messaging service, announced today, isn’t an email killer. Instead, it’s an all-encompassing messaging system that works across Facebook chat, email, and text messages.

Now that we’ve seen the product, it’s clearly not the threat to email we previously thought. But the new messaging service could pose a problem for the hot mobile chat startup Kik, which we’ve covered extensively.

I’ve fallen head over heels for Kik over … Continue Reading