Even though Hotmail has had some trouble holding its ground as an e-mail client to the likes of growing Gmail and ring leader Yahoo, the Microsoft product has recently been busy bringing some formidable new features. Recently, it integrated Facebook chat and even offered a “throwaway” account feature.
Now it’s stepping up its integrated options with new Active Views for LinkedIn, Posterous, LivingSocial, and Netflix. Active View was introduced last year, and it’s a feature that allows users to preview message attachments via a slideshow. It works for images as well as shared links and videos. Now it’s getting business savvy with its new partnerships. According to Microsoft, this isn’t only to offer customers a more user-friendly option for viewing e-mail, but gives businesses a better chance of recipients following links or opening attachments. In a blog post, the company said that “In traditional e-mail with just a text link, the percentage of people clicking through is less than 10 percent. With Active Views, customers are clicking on the video control in about 25 percent of all e-mail messages with a video.”
Here’s a quick breakdown courtesy of the company’s blog of how it will work with each of the new businesses, which will all now be able to encourage user activity without requiring users to leave their inboxes.
- LinkedIn: With Active Views, users will now be able to act on invitations and messages within their inbox.
- Posterous: The integration enables “inline commenting directly from an e-mail, and the message is updated when you open it to always show the latest comments.”
- LivingSocial: Now Hotmailers will be able to browse through various deals and their details (location, how much time is left) in real time – all from their inbox.
- Netflix: If you have a hotmail account, you can now see new recommendations and update your queue all without leaving the site.
