“…Google’s been able to do quite a bit of good with their money, power and influence and this will be yet another great accomplishment…”

Google just rolled out two new features to those using the latest version of Gmail: "Group Chat" and "rich emoticons." 

As you might guess, the group chat feature allows you to chat with multiple Gmail users at once while the new rich emoticons finally provide the Gmail chat user with a graphical emoticons in addition to the standard animated text ones currently available.

Check out the announcement at the official Gmail blog.

Google just announced the "Google Apps Email Migration API" for Premier, Education and Partner versions of Google Apps (note the lack of "standard accounts" in that listing.)

Using the API, programmers can import E-mail from a vast, vast array of E-mail clients out there into the Gmail application of Google Apps.

Along with the API release from Google comes a new tool from LimitNone for you non-programmers currently using Microsoft Outlook.  gMOVE: Outlook Migration allows users to pick-and-choose Outlook E-mails (either individual folders or your entire folder structure) to be imported into your Gmail account.  This goes for Gmail OR Google Apps - including standard Google Apps accounts.  Beautifully priced at $19.99 (limited time only,) this tool could save you loads of time and frustration.

LimitNone also offers a separate tool, gXFER, for transferring Gmail account settings including E-mail, contacts and calendar entries to your Google Apps account.  This particular tool is absolutely free.

Google’s API Announcement:
http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2007/11/each-and-every-email.html

First off, for those of you new to Flock, check out what all the browser can do for you by viewing their quick (beautifully-designed) introduction on the Flock home page: flock.com. 

Now, are you one of those people that have multiple user accounts on sites like Facebook, Flickr or YouTube?  Maybe you have one set of accounts for your business and another set for yourself…and yet another set for your superhero alter-ego: Loser Man or Backne Girl.  If so, Flock (Mozilla, actually*) answers your cry for help with “profiles.”

Here’s what you do: with Flock closed, go to Start > Run and, in the prompt, type in “flock.exe -ProfileManager” without the quotes.  Once the Profile Manager comes up, just click on “Create Profile” to go through the Create Profile Wizard.  You can choose your new profile name and its’ location.

After you’re done, you’ll return to the Profile Manager where you can choose whether or not Flock should ask you which profile to use upon launching the browser. 

Simple as that.

*Mozilla.org: “How to Manage Profiles“

(If we’ve missed something pertinent, please feel free to point out our ignorance in the comments.)

NBC recently began pulling their own content from Google’s YouTube service in a very transparent move to make the exclusive content only available on their own (yet-to-be-launched) video sharing service, Hulu (a joint venture with Fox.)

Initial news about the Hulu service suggested that both NBC and Fox would be placing full episodes of hit shows like The Simpsons, The Office and Arrested Development on Hulu but short, frequently shared clips of the hit shows (SNL’s Junk in a Box, anyone?) may no longer be available.

Wired.com’s review of the service the other day relayed those fears for me and, although we weren’t able to take the service for a test drive ourselves (it’s still in private beta,) we used a PHP script (thrown together by designISsucky) to view some of the 2000+ items of content to see for ourselves.

Sure enough, we saw everything from short clips to full episodes of shows and even a few crappy movies (yes, we’re referring to Weekend at Bernie’s and Bulworth.)

Of course, the content will be absolutely free but you’ll be seeing banner ads on the site in addition to ads interspersed in the content itself (30 seconds or less, typically) at the beginning and end of each full-length show and another spot somewhere in the middle - much like you’re used to now.

Also, there are no options for user-submitted content so everything you’ll be seeing here is official premium content from both Fox and NBC.  If CBS, ABC and others join the team, Hulu could become a one-stop shop for all of your regularly-watched shows.

Technically speaking, the player Hulu uses for the content is one of the best I’ve seen.  The player is Flash-based and, much like YouTube’s most recent player, offers options for embedding and sharing the content and also links to related videos. 

One disadvantage we’ve noticed, carried straight over from the full episodes currently being offered at NBC.com, is the lack of pre-loading on the content stream.  For instance, if you view a clip on YouTube.com, the entire clip downloads in the background as it continues to play; meaning that you can pause the content , let it download, and then go offline and be able to continue to watch the clip.  The Hulu player doesn’t operate quite the same way and, if your wireless signal were to drop, you would not be able to continue the clip even if you were nearly finished watching it.

Overall, we’re very impressed with hulu and, as soon as we get our invite set up, we’ll bring you any more details we can.

In the meantime, we’ve compiled some examples of fine Hulu content so, without further ado:

30 Rock: Jenna on Hardball:

30 Rock: Distracting Intern:

Saturday Night Live: Junk in a Box, Uncensored:

Cheers:

and, of course:

The first season of Arrested Development (Fox)