Now embed images in Gmail
Gmail Labs: Insert image option
Gmail recently introduced a much needed new feature. Now you can actually insert images inline with your text in email. Earlier, people had to attach the pictures instead of inserting the pictures in the mail.
It is a Gmail Labs feature and can be enabled manually from the Labs tab in settings menu.
Enable Insert images function in Gmail Labs
It is a Gmail Labs feature and can be enabled manually from the Labs tab in settings menu.
According to Gmail, “Gmail doesn’t show URL-based images in messages by default to protect you from spammers, so if you’re sending mail to other Gmail users, they’ll still have to click “Display images below” or “Always display images from …” to see images you embed.”
Just make sure you are using the rich formatting mode for composing your emails.
Undo Gmail sent email in 5 seconds
Google has been very active these days and with the bunch of new features introduced in recent days; now Google has introduced another feature which may be of great help to most of the people.
Now Gmail allows you to unsent any email, sent to any email address, with in 5 seconds of clicking the send button. That actually means, when you turn on the undo feature in your Gmail Labs under Settings you email would not be sent immediately. Google would hold each sent email for 5 seconds so that if you really want to cancel sending, just click the undo option.
I sometimes forget to attach the required file in an email or sometimes I forget to CC the email to another relevant person. And even sometimes in a hurry I just click the send option unintentionally. But now, as soon as I realize that I have clicked the wrong button I can undo it instantaneously. This may happen to a lot of users a lot of times but now you have the option to catch it before it is too late.
You must be thinking that 5 seconds are too short to actually figure out any wrong, Micheal Leggett explains his theory of 5 seconds in the Gmail blog as.”My theory (which others shared) was that even just five seconds would be enough time to catch most of those regrettable emails.
Gmail introduces previews for Youtube, Picasa, Flickr and Yelp
In a run to improve the email experience, Gmail has introduced another interesting feature. The users can now preview the Youtube videos, Picasa and Flickr photos and Yelp reviews without opening another window or tab.
Preview of the Youtube videos with in the email
After allowing Youtube preview in Gmail Chat back in January, Gmail introduced this feature in the email as well to help people view the videos and photos sent to them within their email window.
For the feature to work you’ll have to enable it in the Labs tab under Settings.
Enable feature in Gmail Labs
As described in Gmail blog, “Gmail currently automatically detects package tracking information, addresses, and event information and shows quick links to delivery status, maps and directions, and Google Calendar. So why couldn’t Gmail automatically detect links in emails and show videos, photos, and ratings right inside these messages as well?”
Gmail is not the only one in the race to provide a better email experience to users. Yahoo also announced the limited beta launch of applications in Yahoo Mail in December last year.
The proposed apps to be introduced by Yahoo Mail.
According to Yahoo, “We are bringing your favorite Web sites and services right into your inbox. These applications will allow you to communicate, share and get more done within Yahoo! Mail.”
I personally like using both the services. Each of them has some unique features which make me keep using it. One can only imagine that what features can truly define the ultimate email experience.
New Gmail feature: ‘mark as unread’
One of the many features I use Gmail the most is the facility of Gmail threaded conversations. It helps follow the topic from where it started and if its a group mail, all the mails from all of the members are also shown in the same thread.
Yesterday, Google introduced a new small but really helpful feature in Gmail threaded conversations. Earlier, when the users marked a conversation ‘mark as unread’ in an email, the whole email was marked as unread. But now users can only mark those conversations as unread, which they did not read.
The Gmail blog explains, “Now if you’re reading a conversation that had unread messages when you opened it and you mark it unread, Gmail will only mark those messages that were unread when you opened the conversation in the first place.”
It maybe a small feature but it can help a lot in following the emails or some specific conversations in an email.
New beta version of Google Chrome released
Google released a new beta version of its product, Chrome, yesterday. It not only updated the browser for speed and other small features like full page zoom, form autofill and autoscroll, but also; it opened up a new channel for the beta updates so that they can test the beta versions before actually launching the stable version in future.
According to the brand new Google Chrome blog,”The best thing about this new beta is speed — it’s 25% faster on our V8 benchmark and 35% faster on the Sunspider benchmark than the current stable channel version and almost twice as fast when compared to our original beta version.”
The new features also include the options like form autofill, full page zoom, and autoscroll. Another notable feature is that now you can drag any tab out of its window as a whole new window to get a side-by-side view of both windows.
Facebook updates privacy features; allows more openness
If you are a person who loves socializing or are aware of the power of social networking in terms of marketing and communication, you are going to admire this new Facebook initiative.
Facebook recently allowed more openness in its privacy features and now users can open their profile (or just a portion of it) for public view. That mean now you are able to go beyond the network you belong to and can open the selected portions or the full profile of yours to the public.
New option 'Everyone' in the drop down menu on the privacy page of the profile.
You are still able to control your privacy as you used to do it before. There’s nothing changed in the existing privacy settings. This is an additional setting for those of you who wish to share with a broader audience.
Facebook explains in it’s blog, “One of the top priorities at Facebook is offering privacy controls that let you choose exactly what you share with whom. We have largely focused on enabling you to give access to your profile to people you confirmed as friends and people in your networks. While these controls remain important and a priority for us, many of you have explained that you also want to open parts of your profile to a wider audience. Starting today, you can choose to make your profile and any of your content available to everyone on Facebook.”
From the marketing point of view, it’s a good news for the online marketers especially who are involved in Social Media Optimization. It will help users to network with each other. As far as I believe, most of the users will just public their interests and their professional abilities so that they can network with the the users who have same same interests or fall in the same domain.
Allowing more openness in privacy options is another move by Facebook to let more users interact with each other and engage them in more socializing or professional networking activities.
Inside Facebook reports that by allowing public view, the profiles will still not be available in search results. Also, there has been no change in the privacy options for the minors.
It can be considered another move by Facebook to counter Twitter’s openness for subscribing to follow the tweets of almost any Twitter user.
Facebook had recently updated its user interface which also resembles with Twitter in many ways.
New Facebook: like it or hate it…?
Almost all of the Facebook users are using the redesigned Facebook now. Facebook started rolling out the redesigned version last week and claimed that the rollout would be completed by the end of this week.
After exploring the redesigned Facebook, there’s has been a mix response from the users (mostly negative response as it seems like). Some of the users believe that the new Facebook is more interactive whereas
; most of them are of the view that the new version is more confusing and is not what they were expecting.
Some of the main features which are introduced by Facebook in the redesigned version are;
1- Real-Time Stream
The main and the most prominent change/feature is the News Feed at the home page. The stream lets you know what’s happening right now in your world by showing you everything your friends and other connections.
2- The Publisher
Publisher is now on the top of the home page enabling each user a part of the stream. It makes it easy to add your own status, links, photos, thoughts and more into the stream right from the homepage.
3- Filters
Facebook introduced Filters to control the flow of the main news feed. There are pre built filters by the friends list, networks you belong to and location. Whereas; you can customize them or add new filters by making more friends list in the Friends page.
4- Highlights
As opposed to the stream, Highlights shows you what’s happening over a longer period of time. That means in news feed you just only see that what’s going on right now but in highlights section, Facebook randomly features photos, notes and other content you probably don’t want to miss. Like events lots of your friends are attending, links many people have commented on, public profiles your friends connect to and so on. The ‘People you may know’ section, Birthday/event notifications and pokes are in this section, as well.
The redesigned Facebook page.
The blog, where Facebook announced its newly updated design, got near to 6000 (by the time of writing this post) likes but the Twitter search for “new facebook’” tells something else.
Most of the people are not ready to accept the new changes right now. They are uncomfortable and feel like lost in the new design.
Twitter search for the "new facebook"; most of the comments are against the redesigned interface.
I personally like the new interface because it is more ‘interactive’ and has ‘greater usability’ than before.Now, it’s easy to update my status and to filter others’ statuses.
What disturbs me is the run to catch up with the stream and I am now getting overflowed information, even from the sources I don’t want to follow. I mean, we have Twitter for that but I don’t want to miss any of the updates from any of my contact. Now, it feels like you are lost.
The second thing I hate about the new Facebook is that now I don’t have ‘Tabs’ in my news feed now. Through tabs you could categories or limit your stream to just see the ‘Status updates’, ‘Photo updates’, ‘Notes updates’ or other things from your contacts. It’s not there now.
I am not against the development of the Facebook but I firmly believe that some of the functions of in older version were worth enough to carry on in the newer version.
I’ll also write a post on it later on.
Just take 10 seconds and tell us what do you think about the new Facebook?
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