Google's Gmail to challenge Facebook, Twitter

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Google plans to make Gmail more social by allowing users to exchange status updates with friends and share Web content links, features that moves its popular e-mail service into more direct competition with Facebook and Twitter, media reports said Tuesday.

Gmail users will gain a module that displays status updates from selected Google contacts, a form of interaction popularized by Facebook and MySpace and also embraced by Yahoo.

These status updates will eventually include content shared by one's Google contacts through other Google properties, such as YouTube and Picasa.

Google is also expected to create strong ties between Gmail and its YouTube video site and Picasa photo gallery service. It plans to unveil the changes to Gmail this week.

This simple tweak to Gmail will let Google mimic the status updates that have driven much of Facebook and Twitter's success, as people return to the services again and again to check out what their friends and co-workers are doing.

Facebook's walled-off form of social computing is seen as one of the few forces that threatens Google's online advertising empire. In response to that threat, Google has spent the past few years adding social features to encourage social interaction among users of its services.

After Google Search, Gmail is one of Google's most popular products.