Google Tag

Gmail Debuts More User-Friendly Contacts Manager

Today, Google unveiled a brand-new system designed to simplify two key functions for Gmail users: overall contact management and keeping these contacts consistent with the rest of Gmail.

Such a roll out couldn’t have surfaced a minute too soon as animosity among Google’s users has been brewing worldwide in response to multiple disappointing oversights by the social network. Most notably, a formal letter to Google orchestrated by 10 nations to express deep concern about the lack of privacy regulations in the company’s recent debut of Google Buzz.

Now, more than ever, Google fans are craving a little reassurance about why they’ve pledged their cyber loyalty to the enterprise. And now, thanks to Google’s Gmail enhancement, supporters can rest assured – for the meantime – that the network is powering through their obstacles to provide a better overall Google experience.

Gmail members can now look forward to new features that include:

• Keyboard shortcuts that mirror Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts
• Sort by last name filter
• Faster editing options
• Autosaving
• Custom labels

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Google TV Aims to Fuse Television and the Internet

During the 2000s, Google effectively established itself as an innovator in the tech world, and the company is taking measures to ensure it maintains its status as an innovator in the industry. The company recently announced a new App Store, which will be opening later in the year, and now Google is branching off into a new media: TV.

At the company’s annual developer conference last week, Google executives unveiled Google TV. It’s no secret that people are eschewing commercials and traditional TV viewing in lieu of DVR recordings and online streaming video. In an attempt to capitalize on this trend, Google TV offer consumers a tool for organizing and watching all of their favorite shows in one location.

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Major University Abandons Gmail Service

The 30,000 staff members at the University of California Davis are no longer using Gmail as their e-mail provider. The university had been testing Google’s e-mail service since August 2009, in hopes to eventually roll it out to the entire campus population. However, university officials say that the e-mail service isn’t secure or private enough to meet their standards.

Quite a few staff members had privacy concerns, many of which stemmed from Google Buzz, the social network embedded within Gmail. In a letter from the university to Google, school officials wrote that the staff members “expressed concerns that our campus’ commitment to protecting the privacy of their communications is not demonstrated by Google and that the appropriate safeguards are neither in place at this time nor planned for in the near future.” (more…)

iePlexus Social Media News Brief: April 30,2010

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Facebook Decals Coming to a Business Near You

Whether it’s your favorite cupcake shop, the car dealership down the street or the place where you get your coffee every morning, it appears that neighborhood businesses nationwide have jumped onto the social-media bandwagon. Facebook, in particular, has become one of the most essential tools in business advertising and marketing; and now, the social network is moving from the web to storefront windows.

Tim Kendall, Facebook’s director of product marketing, sent a letter to the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, Calif. this week, which also included a Facebook decal, to say:

“We invite you to place it prominently on your window or sales counter, since businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20 percent or greater increase in connections.” (more…)

iePlexus Social Media News Brief: April 28, 2010

iePlexus has the latest headlines in the social media world in today’s Social Media News Brief… (more…)

Social Media News Brief: April 21, 2010

Get caught up with iePlexus’ Social Media News Brief. (more…)

10 Nations Worried About Google Privacy

Leaders of data protection from 10 nations – Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom – have written a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt expressing their concern about some of the privacy issues connected with a few of Google’s services, specifically Google Buzz and Google Street View.

“We were disturbed by your recent rollout of the Google Buzz social networking application, which betrayed a disappointing disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws,” the letter stated. “In essence, you took Google Mail (Gmail), a private, one-to-one web-based e-mail service and converted it into a social networking service, raising concern among users that their personal information was being disclosed.” (more…)

iePlexus Social Media News Brief: April 14, 2010

How your website’s speed will now play in where you show up in Google’s search results.  Twitter reveals a new feature, how this could impact businesses and Twitter users.  And get your Gleek on, Glee returns to TV this week but not after a few Glee viral videos hit the web.  We’ll take a look at some of them in today’s social media news brief for Wednesday, April 14, 2010. (more…)

Murdoch Strikes At Google Again…

It’s been awhile since we first heard Rupert Murdoch that he would block News Corp. websites off the search engines, particularly Google.  And since nothing has happened within the past 5 months, Murdoch warned the world again over the weekend that his sites will no longer be available to the search engines.   .

“We are going to stop people like Google or Microsoft or whoever from taking stories for nothing . . . there is a law of copyright and they recognise it,” Murdoch said according to Paul Harris who attended the National Press Club. (more…)