I loaded up Gmail this morning expecting to see the usual assault on my inbox, when something new caught my eye. Apparently, Google has started inserting favicons, the little icons that many browsers put next to a website’s URL or bookmark, next to messages.
So far, I’m only seeing it for emails from Netflix. As you can see below, their Gmail favicon matches their website favicon. Others are seeing it too, but again, only for Netflix right now.
The use of these icons is somewhat interesting because it definitely does draw your eye’s attention to these emails. If spammers figure out how to insert these, it could be a bad thing. But for sites like Netflix, it’s another fairly useful way to visually sort email. Anyone else seeing these for any other sites yet?
Also, yes, I realize that I’ve just revealed to the world that I rented Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Don’t judge.
Yep I see them as well. But it is only on netflix too
I’ve invented the “fav-o-mirror,” a tiny reflecting device to stick up there so you can see what you look like to Google. Call me babe.
An interesting thing would be to look at the full source of the mail and see if there are any special headers sent by Netflix. I don’t have a Netflix account, so I can’t look myself.
They could just be looking up http://senderdo...ain/favicon.ico like a web browser would, and then inserting the image into Gmail.
this is intersting. Also, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past it’s not a bad flick. lol
MG, which theme is that? are you using an addon with firefox?
nope not in firefox, tested in a few different browsers. theme is ‘tree’ though that isn’t what’s causing these either.
No yeah I know, I just wanna get rid of the text after the subject.
Look for “snippets” in your general settings. You can turn them on or off.
Thanks, I looked there several times, don’t know how I missed it
I thought that Sunshine Cleaning wass really good
hopefully i’ll be able to confirm that on monday.
enjoy! really nice flick.
I think the biggest question is why would you rent Ghost of Girlfriends Past?
I think the biggest question is why would you care about his ‘personal choice’?
Maybe you could start blogging about Yahoo mail too? After all Yahoo Mail has far more users like Gmail, around ten times more users, and it never seems to appear on the news.
maybe we should also start blogging about USPS.
Props for the USPS joke. Well done
Didn’t you get the memo? Yahoo isn’t cool anymore, just kidding
YHOO is cool only for user count and uptime record; GOOG has feature appeal and pizzazz
If I hadn’t picked a really ridiculous name for my gmail account way back when, I would have already switched from using Yahoo mail as my primary, to gmail. I really really really kick myself now.
you release that you can create a new account… right?
Ouch! the uptime comment hurt.
true. yahoo mail has had favicon for years, like expedia’s
+1
It’s shameful how MG always favours Gmail, simply because he uses it. Writing entire posts each time Gmail adds a little feature. Meanwhile, Yahoo mail just got as complete UI overhaul, as well as adding social networking features to its e-mail. Whether this is good or not is besides the point- why was this not covered on TC? Ridiculous.
Techcrunch generally likes Apple, Google and Twitter. That’s it.
You are forgetting Facebook — the original love affair
Agreed to your point .. this is very true .. If you look at the You will hardly get the news apart frm Google products , Apple , Facebook, twitter.. Try to expand your news circle .. I mean there are many other companies in the market apart frm those.. just to name few .. there is Microsoft, HP, Dell..
Best,
Daina Thomas
because mg probably sleeps with the pr forks at google/gmail.
I started with Hotmail, then moved to Yahoo Mail and finally ended up with Gmail. Yahoo Mail was good, agreed, but Yahoo Mail’s spam filter is probably one of the worst I’ve ever used! Gmail spam filter is probably one of the best. Add to that the free IMAP service and the many useful Gmail Labs features, it is quite hard not to choose Gmail.
)
As for MG being biased towards Gmail, well, it’s a ‘blog’. And blog writers can be biased. Probably you can start your own blog praising Yahoo Mail! Or better. Request Michael Arrington to write one for you. He’s pretty good at increasing traffic on TC. My guess, his title would be — I QUIT GMAIL!
When people say they get spam in Y! accounts, I don’t get it. I might,….MIGHT…get 5 spam emails a day. And they almost never go into inbox.
Maybe your case is an anomaly
5 spam messages a day? I don’t get 5 spam messages a month in Gmail and I get a lot of mail.
Plus…so many more (free) features.
Very cool – we’ve talked about doing this with OtherInbox for a while. Some users may want to turn it off, but I think that most will find it helpful.
It probably needs some kind of authentication / whitelist so that people can’t give their emails an Amazon icon, etc.
Yeah you’re probably right about the authentication Josh, no word from GOOG yet.
The spammer problem can relatively easily be circumvented, through showing favicons only for selected, trusted sites.
Besides that, I think that this is a totally crappy idea. It clutters up the inbox with icons that don’t seem to provide any useful information. It’s a problem for smaller websites that probably won’t get this preferred treatment from Google.
I hope this is an experiment that goes nowhere.
Can you say monetization? (not a word according to firefox but my dictionary recognizes it)
Good work gmail!!! That is sort of cool!!
are you sure you aren’t being PUNK’ED by gmail
I want to be able to add my own! Maybe on an opt-in to view basis, for obvious reasons.
I thought this was going to be another story about Google Wave!
google wave, gmail google…same shit…techcruch will cover it with no regards to any tech company.
I’ve been seeing them for almost a month. Looks like they are bucket testing this new feature for gmail. It’s not just the icons – the netflix email body have a (Google-hosted) JavaScript widget which shows a panel with your personalized movie recommendations.
http://mail.goo...p;answer=151545
It’s sponsored, if you look at the bottom there are extra features, and a navigation thing. For more info:
http://mail.goo...p;answer=151545
Nice feature, especially if they build an on/off toggle.
Not new though – saw it first on Threadsy.
ghosts of girlfriends past is a nice movie. <3
Perhaps this would lend itself to a more secure way of detecting fraudulent emails. ô¿ô
This idea has been around for a while. Here’s one example:
http://www.iconix.com/
It would be relatively easy to implement this. You start with SPF. If the email passes (possibly strict) SPF checks, then you go to the domain’s web presence and find the favicon.
Of course it’s only indicative as Mr Spammer could make his domain’s favicon be Netflix’s and then send SPF compliant email. So a whitelist would be needed for proper trust.
Spam? … Do you get that often? on gmail? strange.
fwiw, I was not being sarcastic at all. I do get some emails I did not ask for in my spam email address (yes, the one I use on techcrunch) but my main email address sees about two or three spams a month if that. (the rest of it goes straight to the junk mail folder).
Thanks for sharing
I am excited reading the post
not sure if this really represents a value-add…
I can’t see them. Too bad for me.
If you right click on the image and view it, it’s url is – http://www.gsta...9490b/icon2.png .
It’s a partnership thing, not just pulling the favicon.
Awesome. Another way for phishers to make uneducated users feel safer clicking their site. Thanks google– you’re doing a heck of a job making the site less secure every single day. Just stick to what you know– keeping it simple– and leave the bloat to third parties, ok?
SenderOK has been doing this for six months and we were issuing press releases about “favicons’ in the inbox in May. Of course they are only doing what is logical. What isn’t logical is watching Yahoo and Microsoft do nothing.
Spammers are not going to get past authentication checks. Neither Google nor SenderOK would let any sender operate with icons who doesn’t have a clear opt-in and unsubscribe policy.
But note that Google only operates on its own platform. We operate in Outlook as well as Live, Yahoo and Gmail. You can see the icons at http://www.face...ok.com/senderok
What we don’t do yet is add new website content from the sender into a static Email. Google beat us to the punch on that.
There should be no doubt that this is the future of Email. This isn’t a new or silly idea.
Let’s refer to my blog post from July 25th called Black and White Email Turns to Color Like TV in the 1960s:
http://senderok...v-in-the-1960s/
Those who say icons will clutter up the inbox are like those who said the third brake light was superfluous or that color would give people headaches watching TV. In my experiencing using our own plug-in, it really helps to know which Facebook and Twitter notifications are real and which are phishing attempts. The difference is literally black and white vs color.