Chat and e-mail

Skype 3 rolled out today without a lot of fanfare. That's fitting as it brings some nifty-sounding new features, but none of them are earth-shattering. The first is a new tab on the Skype dashboard called "Live" that incorporates Skypecasts right into the main window. Here, you can join public discussions and conversations in progress, or start your own. If none of the conversations strikes your fancy, browse the directory to see if there's anything for you there.

The other big addition is the new Do More option under the Tools menu. Here, you'll find … Read more

There's a new click-to-call service launching soon: Jaxtr. Like Jangl, Jaxtr is a way station for phone calls that gives the person being called a lot of control over who can reach them.

The Jaxtr team is pitching its widget technology as the main differentiator of the service. Each Jaxtr user can put a box on their blog or their social network page that allows anyone to connect to them by phone. The reader puts in their phone number, and then Jaxtr calls both parties and connects them. Or--more likely for Jaxtr widgets posted on blog pages--Jaxtr connects the … Read more

Skype announced today a new all-you-can-eat SkypeOut plan for U.S. and Canadian customers. For $29.95 per year, you can make unlimited SkypeOut calls to mobile phones and landlines within the U.S. and Canada. Even better, if you sign up for the plan before Jan. 31, 2007, you get a 50 percent discount so you only pay $14.95 for a year of unlimited SkypeOut calls, plus 100 minutes of SkypeOut credit for international calls. If you're like me and don't make even $14.95 worth of SkypeOut calls each year, you can still opt to … Read more

Correction: My previous post about SimplyHeadlines stated that the product did not allow users to add their own RSS feeds. I was mistaken, as this TalkBack post explains. Sorry for the error.

I thought maybe this pitch had been stuck in my email since 1999 and just got jiggled loose: "Receive your personalized SimplyHeadlines customized newspaper via email."

SimplyHeadlines, launching today, lets you select from a variety of news sources, and it will deliver you a nice-looking "newspaper" in your email every day at the time of your choosing. Nice, I suppose, if you've never heard of personal start pages like My Yahoo, Google homepage, Microsoft Live, NetVibes, etc. And it's even better if you don't like real customization: While you can select from a … Read more

Pando earlier this year launched it service that lets consumers send 1GB attachments with email. Basically, the download gets send across peer-to-peer networks. Now the company has released plug-ins that let you add the attachments without leaving your email application.

"In the first version, you installed the software. Then you opened the application and typed in an email address. We had a standalone product," said CEO Robert Levitan. "Now you can go to Yahoo email or Outlook or Gmail, hit attach and go."

Although consumers tend to be initially skeptical of the software, it works, and … Read more

Headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., since 1999, online e-mail and calendaring company BlueTie doesn't benefit from the Web 2.0 buzz. But its offerings have a familiar ring to people who have explored hosted alternatives to Microsoft's Exchange.

Like Zimbra, BlueTie uses AJAX Web development to make an interactive Web front end. It targets small and medium-size businesses, selling through Internet Service Providers, resellers and its own direct sales force. Last month, it introduced a free version of its e-mail and calendaring service to complement a high-end $4.99 per user per month service, which has more storage … Read more

From CNET News.com:

Zimbra plans to introduce integrated instant messaging to its Web-based e-mail and calendar software next year, the company's CEO said.

The open-source software company is also set to release an "offline client" in December that will allow people to use the Web-based software when disconnected from the Internet.

Zimbra's software uses AJAX heavily, which means people can drag and drop items as in Exchange or Notes. The chat and presence features will allow people to exchange instant messages from within their e-mail/calendar client. And the offline client, when it's available … Read more

Getting tired of giving out your real e-mail address every time you want to register to use a new Web site? What you want are disposable e-mail addresses. There's a new system out there for this purpose that's unbelievably simple to use. It's called 2Prong.

Say you're on some new site that's asking for your e-mail address so it can confirm your registration. Don't give it your personal e-mail address. Instead, open another browser window and go to 2Prong.com. On the site there will be a throw-away e-mail address, like this: d3ucjmnck4@andeezy.… Read more