Slashdot Mirror
Gmail Gets RSS
Everyone with a UID and Paul Stamatiou writes "Google's Gmail email service now sports a new feature for displaying RSS feeds, dubbed Web Clips. You might remember this name, as it is the same name Google Desktop refers to RSS feeds. Web Clips for Gmail were announced a long time ago sometime during the summer but they were finally stable enough to release to the general public. You can check out the what's new page for Gmail here. Essentially, you subscribe to a bunch of feeds and everytime you log into Gmail it loads the lastest title from each feed which you can scroll through with left/right arrows. Don't forget to check the actual post about Web Clips for Gmail on the Google Blog."
My various daily updated websites that use metafile data to pass a hyperlink (blog with RSS feed for you non-jerk-new-wordphobes) has been getting referrers from gmail since yesterday. I've been getting AOL webmail referrers for a week or so, now it makes sense why this is.
RSS connectivity in the e-mail client is very powerful, maybe the most powerful feature I've seen. I've had trouble getting my audience to download a good RSS reader, but I've seen traffic pick up. Is there a reasonable javascript for "Add this blog to your RSS feeds" that will work with the webmail feed readers?
I'm hiring a 74 year old expert to cowrite 2 blogs and his readers are generally older. Most have e-mail, and as more people flock to webmail for security and efficiency, adding these features is key to helping the new "media" grow. Even for the not retired, easy access to what you want is making generic news outdated.
This news probably pisses off the old media who continue to lose control. If the politicians see their monkeys are powerless, be sure to see regulations on blogs next, via the illegal and unconstitutional FEC and SEC.
I saw it when I opened GMail to do my daily clean up of my GMail archive account. I disabled 99% of it and added Slashdot as the only "Webclip" available. The first (and only) story it showed was from 18 hours ago. Not exactly useful for me I guess.
YMMV.
If Slashdot's RSS feed is a default, could Web Clips Slashdot Slashdot?
I have had it for about 6 months. No one else I knew that had Gmail had the webclips...
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
Seems they have difficulty deciding how to do RSS..
Not the first time I post about it, but I really see this as the future of RSS: GeoRSS. And you know what, if one company can push the georss standard to general use, yup, it's Google.
What's georss? From slashgisrs: A team is working on Geographically Encoded Objects for RSS feeds. From the overview: "GeoRSS is simple proposal for RSS feeds to also be described by location or Geotagged. We standardize the way in which "where" is encoded with enough simplicity and descriptive power to satisfy most needs to describe the location of Web content. [...] it should serve as an easy-to-use geotagging language that is brief and simple with useful defaults but extensible and upwardly-compatible with more sophisticated formats like the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) GML (Geography Markup Language)".
The Open Geospatial Consortium is really an important body in the geospatial community. They're the one whom just made WMS an ISO Standard.
Animoog.org
Yes I've noticed in the past week or so that it's become almost as cumbersome to use as Hotmail. Why I loved it and lept for it was because it was very smooth, and concise - Gmail was perfect for email and it kept it simple. Now it's becoming something akin to AOL's interface. (OK I'm exhagerating a bit) but seriously what's next - popups selling me stuff and a 5 minute load up time?
Another way to shove AdSense down our throats. So far, it seems like roughly 1 of every 3 clips is an advertisement.
Does anyone else find this totally unexciting? Thank god you can turn this feature off.
I check all my feeds on My Yahoo once a day, and then once I've read what interests me, I feel done with them. I can't imagine being happy with just randomly presented feeds. Especially one at a time.
Definitely going to stick with My Yahoo for now.
Um... no?
Seriously, I've used it from behind a whole whack of different firewall/proxy configurations, and I've never had a single problem. And what could you possibly need to screw with in your browser? Turn on JavaScript?
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
really they need to add a calender. i think this would be the icing on the cake and would be essential imo for people to use gmail as they're primary interface.
1) You say that "we might remember the name" if we use Google Desktop.
2) Google Desktop is only available for Microsoft Windows.
3) You submitted directly to Slashdot.
Therefore, you are implying that the majority of Slashdot readers use Windows? Might want to put on your flame-retardant PJs.
Never had a problem. if you can browse slashdot you can use gmail.
Did anyone else notice that if you click on your Spam folder it displays recipes for SPAM, and if you click on the Trash it shows you recycling tips. :-)
They also added the ability to view Office, OpenOffice, and PDF documents as HTML like their search results. Very useful if you receive documents but don't have the necessary viewers.
Then they also added something on the sidebar to automatically link to maps and shipping trackers if addresses or shipping numbers are mentioned in the email. So if I say: "Yeah man. Party's at 123 Fake Street," presumably it links to it if the recipient has Gmail. Or if FedEx sends me an email with my shipping number, I can just click the link on the side to view it. I think that's pretty slick, and a good use of their text scanning abilities they already use for AdWords.
I didn't even notice the RSS stuff this morning when I logged in so I checked again and it was there. Pretty cool and unintrusive. the first feed I saw on there was from Dictionary.com "voluptuary: a person devoted to luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites." Learn something new everyday I guess.
Everyone loves Google, until of course they become evil and we all hate them.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/It would have been cool if the list of feeds automatically included the feeds I use on http://www.google.com/ig (Google's try at my.yahoo that I've come to like), but no such luck.
You can turn off web clips easily enough in GMail's settings. Right now I find it distracting, but I'll give it a week or so.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
You're most likely having ID-10-T problems. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about it as google won't issue a fix.
Sounds like technical issues between the chair and the keyboard. Either that or your firewall, proxy, and browser all suck.
It started back in Team Fortress Classic
i feel so left out now!!!
So *that's* what that is! I noticed the new line above my inbox this morning and wondered what the heck it was. I didn't manage to divert my eyes clear to the right of the screen to see the "" and "Customize" buttons. Google needs to perhaps rethink how new features are introduced when users (well, at least one) finds out about new features through a completely different site.
Unfortunately, there's no integration with the google homepage where you also setup your news/RSS feeds. The data has to be setup twice, when it should really be from the same place.
Google has a lot of nice stuff, but they've got a lot of work to do to integrate it and bring it to the most useful.
- AMW
What does Hexadecimal 0x8 have anything to do with it?
gmail made me switch to firefox :)
Everything else worked fine in old IE until that came along and decided my browser config just wasn't good enough.
I haven't looked back since, but the moral of the story is gmail isn't a standard application, and sometimes different configurations baffle it.
liqbase
No.
Why would I choose to login to Gmail to use this instead of bookmarks or with a Firefox extension?
There is no god but Google and GTalk is the messenger of Google.
It could be ID-10-T problems in conjunction with a layer 8 error.
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
My favorite is the spam recipe feed it shows when viewing the spam folder.
I don't understand why everyone is so negative about this feature. It's not meant to be a fully-fleged RSS reader; they already have one of those and duplicating that functionality in GMail would be horribly misguided.
It's just some extra stuff to look at when you have no new mail and some time to kill. It's a little thing but usually it's the little things that differentiate the best products from the rest.
It would be nice if it imported my feeds from Google Reader by default, but on the other hand most of those aren't appropriate as "web clips" and I'm sure the number of GMail subscribers dwarfs the number of Google Reader users, anyway.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Every now and then, my inbox page won't load after authenticating when I try to access gmail from behind our corporate firewall, works fine everywhere else.
Don't 'h8'
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
I opened my gmail this morning and immediately clicked "delete... delete... delete... delete..." until there was no more Webclips. Can't we just keep it simple? G-Mail is fully functional the way it is, but I'm seeing a trend to "over optimization" and eventually it'll be crammed full of everything and you'll have to search to find your e-mail - now that's ironic.
Gee this feature was added to GMail at what, prolly midnight this morning? Zonk posts it at 3:05PM? Sheesh...pick up the pace. I actually waited today just to see how long it would take, I noted the change at about 11 (late morning today, hee).
But...why? One of the great things about the internet is that, as a general rule, the geographical location of data is completely irrelevant.
If you go on the georss.org website, you'll understand there's plenty of potential applications. One simple example, you may want to tie news story to a place in order to get BBC news only for stories "located in" ro tied to southeast asia.
From their website: Perhaps all earthquake-related items within 20 miles of your home--delivered to your phone, or a feed of traffic accident items along your daily commute? Once RSS feeds contain geographic location, applications like these and more will be possible.
Animoog.org
noob!
I've used it behind websense, a pix, an ssh socks4 proxy, garbage firewalls, etc., and I've never had a problem.
On a side note, some accounts still don't have it. I've had it for about 5 days now.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
You can't enter your rss feed address you have to search for it, great use that is.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I think I'll use one of http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/08/174925 8&tid=133these and print the spam RSS feed on it!
Now how do I turn the fucking thing off?
I hate it. It displays more ads than feeds.
Question everything
With how bad of a Slashdotting could Web Clips Slashdot Slashdot if Web Clips could Slashdot Slashdot?
(Or take the question seriously if you're so inclined. ^_^)
You're right, man. I didn't mean to be hatin'. It's just so aggravatin'. I have given up on gmail for now.
;D
Thanks to the crowd for showing me love.
Hehe, I shouldn't have to bypass my proxy to get to gmail. Every other website works fine with the Proxomitron, so why doesn't gmail? Sometimes Firefox works, sometimes I have to use IE. It's inconsistent. I'm not changing my config from session to session. I'm not running some experimental software. I'm just typing gmail in the address bar. That's all I'm saying.
What I can't understand is why they haven't yet implemented contact groups. The single major stumbling block that most people I try to convert to Gmail has is that is is missing the (I would think relatively simple) ability to define a group of two or more contacts to which you can easily send a message. Heck, they could even make this Google-y and allow you to define terms with which to build a list, or label contacts as "Personal" and "Business" and then make a group from that. But the base functionality is so stinkin' simple, I just don't know why they haven't done it yet, and it's getting annoying to hear people I've referred to Gmail come up and say "I really like that new Gmail thing, but how do I send a message to a list of people?"
But, Google, how about working on something really useful, like right-click functionality?
Actually I have... checking gmail (which I mainly use as a back-up mailbox for large attachments) is hit-and-miss experience. Sometimes it 'just works', but mostly it does something it shouldn't. Either it keeps on alternating between a blank page and the 'Loading...' message several times a second until I stop it, or it stays on that 'Loading...' page without any further response. This is on firefox (several versions) on Linux, with/without proxies, etc. Now given the use I make of gmail - and the price I pay for it - this does not bother me to much, but even if I were not put off by Big Google is Watching Me crawling my email I would not (be able to) use gmail as my main mailbox. It is not reliable enough...
--frank[at]unternet.org
I think with all the new web2.0 widgets & tools the dev-shops are going crazy over, we are losing sight of basic UI design (i.e. efficiency). I mean it's Google we're talking about here, comeon guys you can do a better UI integration than web-clips!
I mean for RSS feed links, nothing's better than a topdown newpaper view (i.e. a list) than left-right, AOL style.
I'll stick with my trusty Sage plugin for FF.
The google version of my yahoo works nicely too. Not sure what integrating some feeds into gmail really does. Since gmail is a feed itself I never sign into gmail except to actually read an email.
I prefer the old "710 cap" car joke myself. :)
I have had issues with getting Gmail to work through my university's proxy (and no, it's not a javascript problem), but accessing gmail through the address https://mail.google.com/ (as opposed to http://www.gmail.com/ always works (through that proxy, anyway).
... a stupid idea. For those who like to read their RSS feeds already I'll just ignore it and forward it with all GMail stuff to Outlook like I've been doing. Gmail is nice for the simple fact that it provides a location where I can find all my mail in one place. Other than that it's a bit too basic...
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
... are great, but why the HELL am I STILL unable to search for un-labeled messages? Argh!
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
I use Konqueror 3.5 for my browser, but I have to switch to FX to use Gmail properly. First, i have to impersonate Safari or FX to get the standard interface, and even then it's broken. Considering that Konqueror 3.5 passes the Acid2 test, it seems like Konqueror would put as much effort in these areas as well.
So much for standards compliance...
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I saw this today and got rid of it as fast as I fucking could. I use Gmail specifically becuase it _DOESN'T_ bother me with annoying fucking doodads like this. So thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn't show up if you have your language set to english - UK, only English - US.
Gmail has offered RSS support for months. Why is this article even posted now?
That must be double-plus good!
and has anyone noticed that a large chunk of /. material comes in after it's been posted on digg.com for a while?
I really wish they had integrated Google Reader Google Reader in Gmail, ending up with somenting like Bloglines, rather than this crappy webclips that comes in the way distracting me while I try to concentrate on my emails (yes, I just disabled them)
You know, there's a little thing called IMAP.
She still only has 4 invites though, when everyone else has 50, she's not pleased about that.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."