July 10, 2009

Bing Powers New Quick Add Feature for Hotmail

If you're a Hotmail user, you now have a new feature called Quick Add. The feature allows you to include a variety of goodies to your emails including restaurant reviews, movie times, images, videos, and maps. Quick Add is availalbe to users in Australia, Canada, China, India, US, and the UK.

To use the feature, begin a new email message. Then make a selection from the Quick Add, which you can find on the right pane. Search the Bing search box and then insert your result into the email.

What do you think of Quick Add? Any Hotmail users out there try it out yet? Let us know your experiences in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

January 4, 2006

PC World Talks Web Mail Betas and Desktop Search

An article in the the January 2006 issue of PC World offers a brief look at web mail betas from Yahoo (I use it all of the time, kudos), MSN Live Mail, and Zimbra. The Yahoo and MSN services are invite only betas at the moment.

Yahoo Mail's search shines, reaching into attachments as well as e-mail messages, and showing the document snippet where the search term was found. Yahoo Mail also interacts logically with your browser's back button--often a trouble spot for Ajax apps that continually update one "page" in the browser. In contrast, Gmail disables the back button, while Zimbra warns you that using it will log you out.

Microsoft's Windows Live Mail, which feels more like a tweak to Hotmail than a total rethinking of Web mail...

...Zimbra's real strength is as a full-fledged communication server, allowing a company to integrate its databases so users can, say, jump from a message with an order number to the order database itself.

The Open Source Version of Zimbra is available as a free download while a Network Edition priced at $28 per mailbox per year

And now to desktop search...

What a difference a year makes. It was just a year ago when we were in the midst of desktop search wars. Well, that was a year ago and this month the topic gets little press. A PC World article by Stephen Manes: Desktop Search: Just What You Need, looks at the power of what desktop search can offer the end user. He says that Yahoo Desktop Search is his favorite but adds that if YDS doesn't work for you to try one of the many other free desktop search tools available.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:44 AM | Permalink

December 27, 2005

Time For Dinner: Email/Gmail Team Leaders from Google, MS, and Yahoo Break Bread With WSJ Writer

Inside Google points us to this interesting read about email services by Lee Gomes at the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: The Men Who Came To Dinner, and What They Said About Email and reports on a recent dinner Gomes had with email/Gmail team leaders: Paul Buchheit (Google), Kevin Doerr (Microsoft), and Ethan Diamond (Yahoo).

From the article: The evening wasn't all a Gmail love-in, though. The Microsoft and Yahoo representatives said their many millions of users might not accept some of Gmail's departures from email norms, such as the way the program groups messages into "conversations." The two men also razzed Mr. Buchheit a bit, saying that it had been easy for Google to promise a lot of storage to its users because it carefully controlled how many users Gmail would have by requiring an invitation to get an account.

Indeed, more than 18 months after its unveiling, Gmail is still a beta, or "test" product. But so are the new email versions the Microsoft and Yahoo programmers are working on. And no one is saying when any of the beta periods will be over.

I've been a Yahoo Beta Mail user for several months and love it. In terms of space, I have almost 70,000 messages (many lengthy press releases) stored and haven't even reached the 50% mark in my 2.0GB of storage. I wonder if I'll soon be able to "tag" my Yahoo Mail for better searching?

I'm also looking forward to trying the new Windows Live Mail beta if and when I get an invite. You can follow what MSN is up to in terms of email here and also register for the beta.

I'm also wondering if with its new ownership and the call from Barry Diller to expand the number of employees it has, Ask.com will release its own email service in 2006? Yes, I know Ask Jeeves also operates MyWay.com, which does offer free email, but I'm thinking of a Ask.com branded service that might also take advantage of the "universal mailbox" concept being used by Bloglines.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:19 PM | Permalink

December 16, 2005

A Brief Look at Mobile Mail Access from Yahoo and MSN

As Chris pointed out late yesterday, an official version of Gmail is now available for mobile devices with a web browser. This post offers a very brief look at what two of Google's competitors offer in terms of "official" mobile access to their mail services. Official because it's possible to read email on one of many mobile web readers from various services.

+ The Yahoo Mobile site points to this info page about they call Yahoo Mobile mail. Here we run into different services from different mobile providers. In most cases, access via a mobile web browser is available. In other cases, Sprint/Nextel for example, you also have an option to download and use a mobile client app designed for Yahoo Mail. I've been accessing Yahoo Mail from my web browser for months. I haven't tried the client app yet. The Sprint app became available in June.

+ Not being a Hotmail user it's impossible to share first-hand knowledge of what's available. However, the MSN Mobile site does offer Hotmail access. I think what's most noteworthy is that a new version of mobile Hotmail (for both the regular and mobile web are being developed/beta tested right now for the new MSN Live service. You can learn more and even catch a screenshot here and on the Your mail is here, come and get it! blog. You can also register to become a beta test of one or both services.

Postscript: P.L. points out that Google's new Gmail Mobile might not work on all phones and devices with a mobile browser. ">His comments here along with a list of phones that have been "confirmed" to work with Gmail Mobile.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:28 AM | Permalink

January 20, 2005

Hotmail Users Can Now Subscribe to MS Outlook

The AP is reporting that Microsoft is introducing a fee-based e-mail service that lets users, "organize e-mail, contact lists and calendars in their online Hotmail accounts using the Microsoft Outlook program."

The service is called Microsoft Office Outlook Live and will offer 2GB in storage and permits users to send attachments of up to 20 megabytes.

A subscription to Microsoft Office Outlook Live costs $59.95/year (a 25% discount is currently available) and is the first Microsoft Office product to be made available as a downloadable subscription service. Additional details on the Outlook Live web site.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:52 AM | Permalink

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