Last Friday Santa opened up the Ho Ho Hotline and teamed up with Gmail to send personalized holiday phone calls to anyone you know who has been nice (or naughty, for that matter) in the U.S. or Canada. In just a few days Santa has made hundreds of thousands of calls to your friends, family and loved ones, and received many a message from you at his Google Voice number (855-34-SANTA).
Santa has one more surprise in store. Starting today, anyone in the world can create and send a personalized cartoon video message (in English only) from Santa to anyone you know, anywhere in the world, and share them through email and Google+. Watch our sample video below and create your own at SendaCallFromSanta.com.
The Gmail team wishes you a happy holiday!
(Cross-posted from the Gmail blog)
Showing posts with label apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apps. Show all posts
Ho-ho-hold the phone: Santa’s on the line
This year, Santa wants you to reach out to him (after all, reindeer are only so-so conversationalists). If you or your family members have a special request for Santa, you can call him right from Gmail* and leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Santa won't be able to return messages himself—it’s a busy time of year for him—but he's promised to keep us up to date on happenings in the North Pole day by day.
You also can create and send a unique, customized phone call from Santa to anyone you know, from your nieces and nephews to old college friends, over the phone (to U.S. numbers only). Listen to a sample phone call, and send a message of your own from SendaCallFromSanta.com.
Of course, Santa is never one to fall behind the technological times (word on the street is that Rudolph’s nose was recently upgraded to an energy-efficient LED). So while the red suit may never go out of style, this year Santa has come up with an extra special way to spread the holiday cheer. But you’ll have to wait until it’s closer to Christmas to find out what it is. So no peeking—but keep checking the site!
Happy Holidays from your friends at Gmail.
*Calls from Gmail are free for U.S. and Canadian users, but will cost people outside those areas $.01/minute (plus any applicable VATs).
Google Apps highlights – 12/16/2011
This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.
The elves got an early jump on the holidays this year by leaving us some surprises in Google Apps over the last few weeks. Sharing from Gmail got a whole lot easier, and Google Calendar can make better use of precious screen space. We also have 10 new Google Apps customer stories to share from the tens of thousands that have gone Google in recent weeks.
Gmail gets more social
Last week we sprinkled a touch of Google+ into Gmail, making it easier to connect and share with people from your inbox. You can add people to circles right from an email thread through Gmail’s people widget, share photo attachments with friends and family on Google+ without leaving Gmail, and view a filtered version of your inbox only showing messages from people in your circles. We also improved Gmail’s address book by incorporating contact information shared by your friends, family and colleagues in their Google+ profiles.
New features in the Gmail iOS app
Just yesterday we added several new improvements to the Gmail app for iOS 4+. Now you can set up a custom email signature for mobile messages, manage your vacation responder, and view nested labels from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. We also added scribbles, a fun way to spice up messages by adding a quick hand-drawn sketch. You can create scribbles using a range of colors, brush sizes, lines, erasers and spray paints from your touchscreen device.
More free calls right from Gmail
Last year we introduced free domestic calling in Gmail within the U.S. and Canada, and we’re extending this free service for the whole year of 2012. We’re happy to help you keep in touch with those special people in your life, for free.
Hide morning and night hours in Calendar
If you don’t often have appointments early in the morning or late at night, a new trick in Google Calendar might be useful. Now you can hide morning and night hours, leaving more screen real estate for the times of day when most of your events take place. Give it a try in Calendar Labs.
Who’s gone Google?
Businesses and schools are switching to Google Apps in droves these days. From tiny startups to large enterprises and nonprofits to college campuses, we love hearing the inspiring stories that our customers share. Here’s a new batch of stories for your reading pleasure: TripIt, IPSEN, Ebby Halliday, Ticket River, VigLink, HeyZap, The Great Books Foundation, Utah K-12 schools, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and UC Santa Cruz. Welcome one and all!
For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog, and keep an eye out for this series here after the holidays. We launched more than 150 improvements to Google Apps in 2011, and we have a ton more in store for 2012!
The elves got an early jump on the holidays this year by leaving us some surprises in Google Apps over the last few weeks. Sharing from Gmail got a whole lot easier, and Google Calendar can make better use of precious screen space. We also have 10 new Google Apps customer stories to share from the tens of thousands that have gone Google in recent weeks.
Gmail gets more social
Last week we sprinkled a touch of Google+ into Gmail, making it easier to connect and share with people from your inbox. You can add people to circles right from an email thread through Gmail’s people widget, share photo attachments with friends and family on Google+ without leaving Gmail, and view a filtered version of your inbox only showing messages from people in your circles. We also improved Gmail’s address book by incorporating contact information shared by your friends, family and colleagues in their Google+ profiles.
New features in the Gmail iOS app
Just yesterday we added several new improvements to the Gmail app for iOS 4+. Now you can set up a custom email signature for mobile messages, manage your vacation responder, and view nested labels from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. We also added scribbles, a fun way to spice up messages by adding a quick hand-drawn sketch. You can create scribbles using a range of colors, brush sizes, lines, erasers and spray paints from your touchscreen device.
More free calls right from Gmail
Last year we introduced free domestic calling in Gmail within the U.S. and Canada, and we’re extending this free service for the whole year of 2012. We’re happy to help you keep in touch with those special people in your life, for free.
Hide morning and night hours in Calendar
If you don’t often have appointments early in the morning or late at night, a new trick in Google Calendar might be useful. Now you can hide morning and night hours, leaving more screen real estate for the times of day when most of your events take place. Give it a try in Calendar Labs.
Who’s gone Google?
Businesses and schools are switching to Google Apps in droves these days. From tiny startups to large enterprises and nonprofits to college campuses, we love hearing the inspiring stories that our customers share. Here’s a new batch of stories for your reading pleasure: TripIt, IPSEN, Ebby Halliday, Ticket River, VigLink, HeyZap, The Great Books Foundation, Utah K-12 schools, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and UC Santa Cruz. Welcome one and all!
For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog, and keep an eye out for this series here after the holidays. We launched more than 150 improvements to Google Apps in 2011, and we have a ton more in store for 2012!
Gmail and Contacts get better with Google+
We want to bring you a great experience across all Google products which, for Gmail and Contacts, means understanding what you care about and delivering it instantly. With that in mind, we’re introducing some new integrations with Google+ that we think will make Gmail and Contacts even better. If you use Google+, you can now grow your circles, filter emails and contacts by circles, keep all your contact information up-to-date automatically and share photos to Google+, all right from Gmail and Contacts.
Grow your circles from your email
Now when you open an email from someone on Google+, you can see the most recent post they’ve shared with you on the right-hand side of the conversation. If they’re not in your circles yet, it’s easy to add them straight from Gmail.
Find information from the people you care about most
Looking for the info on an upcoming family holiday gathering but can't remember who sent it? If you've spent time building your Google+ circles, you can now quickly use them to filter your mail, saving yourself from having to sift through that pile of daily deal emails and newsletters. You can see messages from all of your circles at once or from each individual circle. And if you want, you can show circle names on emails in your inbox. Contacts can also be filtered by circles, making it easier to view your social connections.
Keep your contact information up-to-date automatically
Manually entering contact information can be a huge time drain—so let your circles do it for you. If your contacts have a Google profile, their contact entry in Gmail will be updated with the profile information they’ve shared with you, including phone numbers, email addresses and more. If they change it in the future, you’ll get those updates automatically. You can also make sure the people you care about have your most up-to-date contact information by updating your own Google profile and sharing it.
Share effortlessly without leaving your inbox
Lots of great images are sent through email, but sharing those photos with friends on Google+ used to require downloading the image from Gmail and re-uploading to your profile. Not anymore: Now you can share photo attachments with one quick click. The image(s) will be uploaded to your Google+ photos and be viewable only to the circles that you choose to share with.
We’ll be rolling out all of these changes out over the next few days to Gmail, Gmail Contacts and the “standalone” version of Google Contacts at contacts.google.com. Please note that Google Apps users won’t see the Contacts updates quite yet, but we’re actively working to make them available.
All of these features (and the more to come) are the result of the great discussion that we had on Google+ with users in July. If you want to join in discussions like these, add the Gmail Google+ page to your circles. And if you haven't signed up for Google+ and would like to try these new features, visit this page to get started.
Grow your circles from your email
Now when you open an email from someone on Google+, you can see the most recent post they’ve shared with you on the right-hand side of the conversation. If they’re not in your circles yet, it’s easy to add them straight from Gmail.
Find information from the people you care about most
Looking for the info on an upcoming family holiday gathering but can't remember who sent it? If you've spent time building your Google+ circles, you can now quickly use them to filter your mail, saving yourself from having to sift through that pile of daily deal emails and newsletters. You can see messages from all of your circles at once or from each individual circle. And if you want, you can show circle names on emails in your inbox. Contacts can also be filtered by circles, making it easier to view your social connections.
Keep your contact information up-to-date automatically
Manually entering contact information can be a huge time drain—so let your circles do it for you. If your contacts have a Google profile, their contact entry in Gmail will be updated with the profile information they’ve shared with you, including phone numbers, email addresses and more. If they change it in the future, you’ll get those updates automatically. You can also make sure the people you care about have your most up-to-date contact information by updating your own Google profile and sharing it.
Share effortlessly without leaving your inbox
Lots of great images are sent through email, but sharing those photos with friends on Google+ used to require downloading the image from Gmail and re-uploading to your profile. Not anymore: Now you can share photo attachments with one quick click. The image(s) will be uploaded to your Google+ photos and be viewable only to the circles that you choose to share with.
We’ll be rolling out all of these changes out over the next few days to Gmail, Gmail Contacts and the “standalone” version of Google Contacts at contacts.google.com. Please note that Google Apps users won’t see the Contacts updates quite yet, but we’re actively working to make them available.
All of these features (and the more to come) are the result of the great discussion that we had on Google+ with users in July. If you want to join in discussions like these, add the Gmail Google+ page to your circles. And if you haven't signed up for Google+ and would like to try these new features, visit this page to get started.
Atmosphere 2011: A view from the cloud
Last month 350 CIOs and thousands of live stream viewers joined us for Atmosphere 2011, our annual cloud event. Leading companies from around the world came to explore how businesses are using the web to drive collaboration, innovation and growth in their organizations. In case you missed them, the keynotes are now available on our YouTube channel. You can watch the entire conference in order on the Atmosphere playlist.
This year’s speakers included a best-selling author, award-winning computer scientists, Google executives and product managers, and several Google Apps customers including Flint Waters, CIO of the state of Wyoming, Bryson Koehler, SVP of Global Revenue and Guest Technology at IHG, Michael O’Brien, CIO of Journal Communications and Christine Atkins, VP of Group IT at Ahold.
One of the highlights was listening to Christine Atkins talk about Ahold’s experience moving 55,000 users to Google Apps and how, in her words, “Google Apps is helping us deliver on the promise that we've all been seeking: that of strong collaboration platforms that help our company come together and work together.” You can watch Christine’s presentation here:
This year’s speakers included a best-selling author, award-winning computer scientists, Google executives and product managers, and several Google Apps customers including Flint Waters, CIO of the state of Wyoming, Bryson Koehler, SVP of Global Revenue and Guest Technology at IHG, Michael O’Brien, CIO of Journal Communications and Christine Atkins, VP of Group IT at Ahold.
One of the highlights was listening to Christine Atkins talk about Ahold’s experience moving 55,000 users to Google Apps and how, in her words, “Google Apps is helping us deliver on the promise that we've all been seeking: that of strong collaboration platforms that help our company come together and work together.” You can watch Christine’s presentation here:
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