As soon as this week, Google might be rolling out a “Twitter-killer” feature for Gmail users, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
Gmail users can currently broadcast status messages via the Google Talk feature. The main difference between the current offering and the new feature is that status messages aren’t available in a timeline format. With the new “Twitter clone,” they will be.
UPDATE: While we’re still waiting for an official response from Google’s PR team, we’ve been invited to an event at the Googleplex tomorrow “to see some innovations in two of our most popular products.” The event will begin at 10 a.m. Pacific (UTC -8) – stay tuned tomorrow for RWW’s live coverage of the event!
This is the current option for updating statuses in Gmail:
Google’s new tools, however, will better integrate with Google’s multimedia sites, YouTube and Picasa. (Currently, Google Talk users can share YouTube videos via chat, which prompts a miniaturized version of the video to pop up above the chat in progress.) Users will also be able to see “a stream of status updates from people they choose to connect with.”
We’re contacting Google for more information and will update this post as we learn more.
In the meantime, however, we’re wondering how this feature will integrate with other status-sharing sites. Will Gmail and Google Talk’s new feature act as Google’s first steps into developing a social media client (like Tweetdeck) in its own right?
The new feature could start appearing on users’ screen as soon as this week. If you had this tool, would you use it?
