Xoopit, a social networking email enhancement that allows users to locate files, images and videos in their inbox, has launched a new feature that lets Gmail users immediately see and set Facebook status messages and view profile photos of their Facebook friends while reading emails off a Gmail account.
Users can also quickly see other information such as birthdays and mobile phone numbers. After downloading the feature, a user can easily update their own status directly from a Gmail account using Facebook Connect. Xoopit’s new feature is pretty neat and gives users the ability to bounce between Facebook and Gmail accounts seamlessly. And Facebook’s status message feature is one that most users check most frequently, so its particularly useful to the average Facebook user.
The marriage of social networking and email is not a new concept. Yahoo and Google are both pretty open to incorporating social networking into their email applications, with Yahoo even potentially creating a social network around its email product (Yahoo mail has around 254 million users worldwide, Gmail has around 80 million users).
It doesn’t appear that the Xoopit-Facebook feature is available to Yahoo Mail users but the Yahoo and Xoopit may not be far away from developing a Gmail-like relationship with Yahoo, as we wrote about late last year.
The plug-in was a bit buggy when I downloaded it but I think its a nifty tool as a whole. It certainly saves me the time in switching back to Facebook to check status updates or update my own status. Now if only we could stream the news feed feature into Gmail.
Here’s another screenshot of the new feature:
very cool firefox add-on.
Only a matter of time before Gmail formalizes a status message-like feature itself.
it kinda does have one with the chat status message thingy
Yes but that’s not a stream, so you can’t see earlier status messages that you missed.
Agree that GMail desperately needs (a) its own status stream, and (b) a feed aggregator for consulting external ones.
Great feature!
Shame it doesn’t work in Chrome yet
It’s a nice example of services that converge in order to facilitate access.
There are still many more converging opportunities out there. People want to accomplish more, and solutions like this are quite helpful.
Lucky is the one who takes advantage of this market need and does something about it.
Just noticed it this morning… Wonder if I will use it… Wish it would also update twitter…. Hmmmm
Zentact’s has Twitter but not Facebook.
E-mail itself is becoming a platform! That’s clear. Unfortunately right now firefox add-ons are the only way to bring truly advanced functionality to web email.
I believe this year companies will start opening it up. Which will open a whole new space for innovation.
There are more possibilities than just bringing the social network into mail and out of it. There’s also a whole process of mail creation that could be improved.
Disclamer: I am CTO at Zemanta which is an add-on that looks over the shoulder while mail or blog is being written and suggests images and (research) links.
Andraz Tori
business model? again we have a company that helps users connect but does not help users find the service. first xob-knee now zoo-pit. theres something about startups from northern california. they appear out of touch with societal norms of communication. its like there hiding their business by the name they choose. whats really going on?
So what’s the business model behind buying tons of useless *locator domains and spamming them all over TC?
If there were a business model here, you’d have sold off the domains and/or had some investment to develop something interesting by now (it has been about a year since your incessant spamming started, yet no-one is interested).
Go away. Or, at the very least don’t criticize companies with *actual products*.
TC does not allow spam. simply asked if there is a business model. never said zoo-pit was a weak product. criticism is a opinion nothing more nothing less. Since 1994 geocities has been an actual product and where is it now. Would it have made a difference if it was called Myspace? where would Facebook be if it was called Fazeboog. you appear to not know the value of natural language location on the internet. MA knows the value of location. Where would TC be if it was called tezcrunk. when you have a “link” that shows “potential” greater than mine let me know. i appreciate your driveby criticism on something you obviously know nothing about.
Pretty sure Google wasn’t natural language before it become… you know… the biggest name in search.
I have nothing against domaining, but please stop pretending that you know something that actual entrepreneurs, funded by top tier VC’s, who create products used by hundreds of thousands of people don’t already know. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Who cares about the name anyhow, unless the company relies primarily on search engine traffic (which they obviously don’t)?
And CD has it right.. “Google” meant nothing until they made something out of it. Now they can put that name behind any type of product (webmail, payments, a web browser) and it still makes sense. That wouldn’t work so well had they chosen the name “websitelocator.com” now would it?
You and your domains are not a product and you didn’t create anything of value. You have added *zero* value to the web. If you did, you’d be funded or bought by now. What don’t you get?
I (heart) social context in email. It’s one thing to get a mail from an email address — it’s another thing to get an email from a real name and profile picture.
Actually Zemanta can get from real name to profile and picture. While you are writing the email…
bye
Andraz Tori, Zemanta
And Zentact’s finds their last tweet and profile photos from multiple sources.
We think context is everything.
jared, Zentact
So that’s the thing that popped up in my Gmail this morning that I clicked “Never show this to me again”…
Very interesting add-on. Seems there’s a lot of potential to combine all services into a one-stop shop. Would really be a time saver to be able to manage many apps from one “place”.
Funny, I was just discussing this type of functionality at lunch today. Too bad it’s firefox only for now.
I’ve had xoopit as a plug-in for several months and while it adds some value, from my perspective that value is very minimal. Additionally, the technology is simple and there doesn’t appear to be much hope for a revenue model. Their options are premium services and/or advertising. To charge a fee, they are going to have to seriously up the value, and even then getting users to part with money is no easy task. As for advertising, I’m guessing Google will frown heavily upon any company that places ads in gmail. Remember, more ads on a page means less value per ad. Xoopits ads would decrease the value of Google’s ads. Xoopit would at this time be swatted from Google’s rather large ass.
The question is, how does a company with a minor product, limited technology and no revenue model raise over $6mm???
Xoopit is the most fantastic Firefox app. It is a lost and found for attachments. When you need it, it is the most useful app I have ever used. All it needs to do is allow me to more easily search zip files and it will be perfect. And just because you lack imagination on how to make money does not mean other people do.
There is always a way…. it may not be obvious to you..
xoopit is very useful…
Really excited to see this and welcome Xoopit to Facebook Connect. Makes Gmail very different and much more personal now!
I tried Xoopit a few months ago and likedthe functionality, but the security model was a problem for me. Giving out your Gmail password is not a good way to go; they should use a tokenized string and change it frequently. I ended up changing my Gmail password and uninstalling Xoopit.
@thegeniusfiles: err… what? tokenized string? huh?
Tokenized string: a unique identifier serving as a “password” (but it is not the root password) within a narrow scope. In other words, it has the privileges necessary to get the job done, but no more. (i.e. can not change Settings, or make a new password for the account.)
Or to put it more broadly: Google is an OpenID provider. Why not authenticate Xoopit that way?
okay, now explain exactly how this works. how does your “tokenized string” work to give access to someone’s gmail?
and openid is just that, an ID, it’s still a credential that requires using your gmail password. i fail to see how that helps with your security concerns.
the only way this could work is if google offered oauth (maybe you’re confusing openid with oauth?) to access all of the gmail content and they don’t. not today anyway.
@cpt.creedle: yeah, my bad. I meant oauth, and you are correct in stating that it would require a decision by the Gmail team to allow this. I think it would be in their best interest, though.
And the tokenized string idea would also require Gmail team approval. Again, I think it would serve them well to do this. The idea is that it serves as a “password” for strictly defined purposes. It doesn’t allow changing account settings or changing the account password. It could also be set to expire within a specified time period.
that’s what oauth is for. controlled access to private resources. both the host and the user get to decide how much access the application gets.