Email extinction could be a reality in the next 10 years, says TalkTalk, proclaiming the younger generation has no need for such long-winded communication.

No doubt echoing similar studies from 10 years ago that predicted the absolute death of snail mail, this most recent effort suggests the "young digerati" prefer "one and done-style messages" such as tweets and IM.

Backed by a social anthropologist from the University of Kent, the research states that Britain has over 2 million "First Lifers", defined as those in their late teens or early Twenties who are tech savvy but don't like being stuck at a desk with just 51% regularly using email.

Older generations are now more likely to use email with the stats coming in at 98% of people aged 65-plus, 96% of 45- to 64-year-olds leading TalkTalk to conclude that email is turning into "grey mail".

Tags: Software Email Survey Social networking Instant messaging SMS Twitter TalkTalk

Email extinction predicted in 10 years originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:38:02 +0000

A survey of 2000 internet users in the UK from GfK NOP has found that iTunes still remains by far the most popular music service, but that new entrant Spotify is shooting rapidly up the charts, despite having only just celebrated its 1st birthday.

The survey asked participants which music services they used, and 11% said Spotify. That puts it in fourth place behind Real Player (13%), Amazon (24%) and iTunes sitting at the top with 50% approval rating. Spotify sits ahead of the slightly older Last.fm (7%), MP3.com (5%) and Napster (4%). 60% of users stream music direct from the Web.

In the navigation arena, Google Maps dominates with 72% of those surveyed saying they used it. The AA came in second place with 40% and Multimap was third with 35%. Behind that came Mapquest (7%), MSN Maps (4%), Yahoo Maps (4%) and Streetmap (3%).

When it comes to social networking, new boy Twitter draws for second place with MySpace - but both only have 4% of people who use them as their main social network. Bebo is even lower with 2%, but Facebook romps home with over 74% of users picking it as their favourite.

IM is similarly dominated by one provider - Windows Live Messenger. 50% picked it as their main provider, with 16% going for Facebook chat, Yahoo IM coming in third with 8%, Skype at 6%, AIM at 5% and Google Talk coming in at just 2%.

Webmail is closer - 33% opt for Hotmail, but Yahoo Mail was chosen by 14%, 10% picked their own ISP's service, and only 6% have "Gone Google" and picked up a Gmail account. Interestingly, a further 6% said they used email provided by a social network - is this MySpace mail?

Lastly, Skype wins out when it comes to VoIP - 60% of respondents picked it as their favourite online voice-calling app. Google Talk was second with 13%, and VoIP.com and Gizmo came in third with 3% each.

Of course, while the best provider is winning the day in some categories, others are dominated by bloated former giants commanding the attention of people who are too lazy to make a change. Which would you pick as your favourite in each category? Let us know in the comments below.

?

Tags: Software Online Websites Music IM Mapping Software Social Networks Email iTunes Spotify MySpace Twitter Facebook Amazon Lastfm Gmail Hotmail Skype Yahoo Microsoft Google Statistics

iTunes still most popular music service by far originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:41:43 +0000

Electric Pocket’s new MailTones iPhone app offers the ability to set a different email alert for each friend, family member or colleague in their address book.

In the words of the developer: "MailTones helps to distinguish high priority emails your boss or partner from lower priority emails from friends or group email lists".

The app comes with a collection of 25 tones ranging from discrete bells to horns and buzzers and can be set for a specific contact or one for all incoming emails from a particular domain - making it easy to recognise incoming emails from work colleagues or customers.

Additionally, it can also filter and provide custom tones for messages which include specific words in the subject line.

There's more info on which mail services work with MailTones over at mailtones.com, while the app is available at the App Store for ?1.79.

Tags: Phones iPhone apps Email App Store Electric Pocket

MailTones iPhone app launches originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:35:07 +0000

Google has unveiled a new version of the Gmail web interface for the iPhone and Android handsets. The last edition was released back in April, but since then the company has made a whole host of improvements, making the mobile version nearly as feature-complete as its desktop equivalent.

Google says: "Over the last six months, we've added a lot: mute, label management, keyboard shortcuts, smart links, an outbox, and the ability to move messages (label and archive in one step)".

"Some new features, like swipe-to-archive and auto-expanding compose boxes, take advantage of these mobile phones' unique properties. We also made address auto-complete faster, enhanced refresh capabilities, and sped up loading so Gmail for mobile starts in under three seconds on newer smartphones".

To get the update, you'll need to go to Gmail.com in your mobile browser, and when we tested it on an HTC Hero we had to download and install a small amount of data, presumably to enable the speed enhancements and offline support.

Unfortunately it doesn't hook into the notifications section of Android devices - they take you to the platform's default, but limited, Gmail app instead. We'd expect improvements to the default Gmail app in future Android builds, like Donut and Eclair.

?

Read

Tags: Phones Mobile phone apps Android iPhone iPhone apps Google Apps Gmail Email

Gmail gets updated for iPhone and Android originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:43:07 +0000

Mozilla has announced an interesting project called Raindrop, which appears massively complicated on the surface but is actually quite a simple idea when you strip it free of buzzwords.

Mozilla (like Google, with its Wave platform) says that "email isn't fun any more". Instead, conversations are taking place all across the Web - in IM, Twitter, blog comment threads, Facebook, and other locations. Raindrop wants to aggregate all that in one place, and sort it so that the useful stuff comes straight to you.

Unimportant messages, like mailing lists, will be relegated to the background whereas the email from your mother telling you she's booked a family holiday to Barbados or the IM conversation from your girlfriend telling you that she's pregnant pops up front and central.

At the moment the project is at version 0.1, so it's only open to developers. You won't be able to download a client just yet, and the team's first task is to create an installer for the application. Still, it sounds like an interesting idea, and we'll keep an eye on it and we'll let you know when it's available to try.

Read

Tags: Software Online Websites Mozilla Email IM Twitter Video

Mozilla announces Raindrop communcations project originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:47:52 +0100

Google has released a preview of its next phase of the "Going Google" campaign that will launch across six new countries.

The campaign, to get businesses to switch over to Google's corporate solutions, has seen bill-board ads across the States.

As part of the expansion of the campaign, the search giant has revealed that over two million companies are now using Google Apps.

Hit play to see more, while the UK-centric info can be found at www.google.co.uk/gogoogle.

Tags: Software Google Biz Advertising Email Online Google Apps

VIDEO: Google explains "Going Google" originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:13:56 +0100

Xobni is a plugin for Outlook which allows you to make more of your connections with people. Building on the theory that you're likely to email - at some point - almost everyone you know, it builds up an address book for you - tying that address book in with services like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Earlier in the year, news of a BlackBerry edition of the software appeared. The mobile version promised the same functionality and options but on a mobile device. It was originally promised for "the summer", but the release of the mobile app has now slipped to "early next year".

In a chat with Eric Grafstrom, Xobni's VP Sales and Business Development, Pocket-lint learnt that the company will also be bringing apps on more mobile platforms. Some are easier than others, though, said Grafstrom, and not much development has apparently taken place outside of the BlackBerry ecosystem yet.

The team are also working on making it easier for big companies to roll out Xobni on lots of computers at once, but desktop users?shouldn't expect too many changes over the next 6 months or so. "More customization might be offered, more data sources, but no major new features", said Grafstrom.

And what do Xobni make of Wave, Google's attempt to rid the world of email? "It's interesting", said Grafstrom. "We've played with it, but we've not started developing for it yet. We have no near term plans in that area".

Xobni is a free download for Microsoft Outlook, and there's a paid version too which allows you to refine searches, view appointments and get better contact suggestions. The upgrade costs $30, one-off.

?

Tags: Software Email Xobni Outlook BlackBerry Phones Mobile phone apps

Xobni coming to more mobile platforms originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:26:09 +0100

Gmail has added a new Labs feature that users of the webmail service can opt in to, and is designed to save from the potential embarrassment of sending an email to the wrong contact.

"When's the last time you got an email from a stranger asking, 'Are you sure you meant to send this to me?' and promptly realized that you didn't?", asks the Gmail team in a blog post.

"Sometimes these little mistakes are actually quite painful. Hate mail about your boss to your boss? Personal info to some random guy named Bob instead of Bob the HR rep? Doh!"

The "Got the wrong Bob?" feature looks at the groups of people you email most often and then identifies when you've accidentally included the wrong person.

Gmail explains: "If you normally email Bob Smith together with Tim and Angela, but this time you added Bob Jones instead, we'll warn you that it might be a mistake. Note that this only works if you're emailing more than two people at once".

Meanwhile, the name of the "Suggest more recipients" feature has been changed "Don't forget Bob", to tie in with this new, related option.

Read

Tags: Software Email Google Gmail Gmail Labs

Gmail intros "Got the wrong Bob?" Labs feature originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:14:07 +0100

Google has confirmed that a large number of passwords to its email accounts have been stolen in an "industry-wide phishing scheme" which affects Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL and a number of other service providers.

Following the news that 10,000 Hotmail passwords had been posted on the Web, a second list surfaced - this time containing 20,000 account details from a string of different account providers. Some of the accounts are old, unused and fake, but many are genuine according to the BBC.

Google said: "We recently became aware of an industry-wide phishing scheme through which hackers gained user credentials for web-based mail accounts including Gmail accounts. "As soon as we learned of the attack, we forced password resets on the affected accounts. We will continue to force password resets on additional accounts when we become aware of them".

The company added that the password issue wasn't a breach of its security, it was instead a scam where users have been tricked into giving up their passwords on what they thought were legitimate sites. These types of attacks are known as "phishing".

Security experts have recommended that if users suspect they might be affected then they should immediately change their passwords, as well as on any other sites that share the same password.

Read

Related links:

• News - Hotmail passwords leaked out online?

Tags: Software Online Email Google Gmail Yahoo AOL Hackers

Gmail, AOL, Yahoo Mail also targeted in phishing scam originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:48:04 +0100

It's being reported that passwords for "thousands" of Hotmail accounts have leaked out online. An anonymous user posted details of over 10,000 accounts with user names running from A to B on a site called PasteBin, which is used by developers to share small chunks of code.

The details have been removed, but they covered @hotmail.com, @msn.com and @live.com accounts mostly based in Europe, according to Neowin, which says it saw a chunk of the list that was posted. It's believed that the passwords originate from phishing scams.

Given that the list covers just A and B, there's a good chance that C, D, E, etc lists exist too. If you're a Hotmail user, then it might be a good idea to go change your password, especially if you use it as your main email account. You should be changing it regularly, y'know.

Update: Google has confirmed that this problem is industry-wide.

Read

Related links:

• News - Laptops hacked by repair technicians

Tags: Software Online Email Hotmail Microsoft Hackers Rumours

Hotmail passwords leaked out online? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:13:35 +0100

If things at Google HQ are running according to plan, then invites for Google Wave should be going out around now. The company told the BBC that it plans to open the service to 100,000 beta testers from 1600BST on 30 September.

Each of those invited will get five invites to pass out to their friends (or put on eBay, where they'll not doubt fetch a respectable sum). It'll work in any browser except IE6, which isn't compatible with HTML5 - however you'll be able to install Google's "Chrome Frame" to get it working in the browser - something Microsoft has advised against.

Google Wave is billed as a "communication and collaboration tool" by its creator Lars Rasmussen. It puts conversations in "the cloud", he says, and includes functions like real-time typing and conversations being more accuratedly threaded and able to be "played back" at a later date".

We'll bring you a full hands-on first look of Google Wave as soon as possible.

Read

Related links:

• News - Google Wave approaches public beta
• News - Microsoft warns of Chrome Frame security flaws

Tags: Software Google Websites Online Google Wave Email

Google Wave invites now available originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:00:00 +0100