ReadWriteWeb

You wouldn't think that Hotmail users can teach you much about email management - after all, the service has been around for many years and was one of the first Webmail products - but there are some interesting insights on Microsoft's What's Your Inbox Like blog that splits you into one of three basic types of email users: filers, pilers and deleters.

Two startups aimed at tackling the problem of excessive noise on Twitter are combining forces. Twitter-powered new reader StrawberryJ.am is partnering with tweet-scheduler Buffer to surface the top stories in your social stream each day and tweet them at regular intervals.

Think of StrawberryJ.am as an automated curator of stories in your social stream. Its algorithm finds what the people you are following are tweeting about them presents them to the user in a manner reminiscent of Reddit or Digg, though combined with the social graph, the way XYDO does. You can then load those stories into your Buffer queue and they will be tweeted throughout the day. StrawberryJ.am is offering beta invites to ReadWriteWeb readers. Check after the jump for information.

Microsoft is working on an HTML5-enabled version of its Hotmail Web application, according to a new report from ZDNet. The updated version will deliver offline storage capabilities, which means webmail users will be able to access their email even when an Internet connection is not available. A similar feature is supposedly in the works for Gmail, Hotmail's top competitor, as well.

With Microsoft's initiatives in the area of HTML5 (the next major revision of the Web's core markup language), including its HTML5-enabled version of Bing search, and updates to Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 Web browser, it wouldn't be surprising to hear that Microsoft is indeed working on an HTML5-enabled Hotmail Web application, too. But will Microsoft actually release it before Google does the same for Gmail? That could make things interesting.

Whenever I'm checking my email, one of two things can happen. I get an email, click on a link, and 20 minutes later I'm not sure how I ended up on Facebook but yes, I would love to attend a dinner party next Thursday. If I'm truly task-focused, however, I'll at the very least end up with a screen full of so many new tabs that I forget which tab I'm on in the first place. Either way, email can set me off on a confusing and messy adventure and Microsoft has an answer I'd love to see become a standard.

Today at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Microsoft is announcing a new type of interactive email that keeps you focused on getting through your email while still being able to look at pictures, watch videos, accept friend requests and more.

Hotmail may have three times as many users as Twitter, but it's looking for something that may not be as easily quantifiable - the cool factor of  Google's Gmail. That's something that Microsoft has been working on for a while now, with a full redesign of its email client last year.

Today, the company announced that it's adding another bit of cool to its 350 million member email system - full chatting capabilities with Facebook's 600 million member network worldwide.

Wouldn't it be great if you could have one email address for all your friends, one email address you use to sign up for potentially spammy services and sites you don't really want to get in touch with you, another for business and then one more for all your gamer friends?

That's exactly the idea behind the new aliases feature announced this afternoon for Microsoft Hotmail's 350 million users.

As of tonight, every one of Microsoft Hotmail's 350 million users now has access to the newest version of the webmail service. And you know what? It looks great. Early adopter snobs have long mocked anyone still using Hotmail, but the service has three times as many people using it as Twitter does (100m+). Why does that matter? Because Hotmail deserves some more respect when it innovates and does things well.

It looks really good these days, too. It's fast, it's really clean looking, it has cool features that Gmail doesn't have. It's worth a look. Your friends might make fun of you if they find out you're using Hotmail, but who really needs friends like that, anyway?

Microsoft just announced the next version of Hotmail, which will bring a large number of new features to the world's most popular email service. Hotmail's 360 million users will soon get enhanced security features, a Gmail-like conversation view, automatic filters for status updates from social networks, integration with the new Microsoft Office Web Apps and numerous other new features that are meant to make using Hotmail safer and reduce the amount of clutter in Hotmail users' inboxes.

The social media data company Rapleaf has just released the final parts of their 3-part study involving the demographics and online behavior of webmail users. In the first part of the study, gender and age data was examined and revealed some interesting findings...like the fact that Gmail has more female users than male, for example. In the final sections of the study, the company has turned its attention to social networking data to discover more details about webmail users' social media profiles, memberships and network preferences.

Social media data company Rapleaf has just completed a comprehensive study involving the demographics and behavior of webmail users. In the first part of their study, they looked specifically at age and gender data and revealed some interesting findings. For example, did you know that Gmail has more female users than male? And that Hotmail is the other way around? Meanwhile, AOL users are older...but maybe not as old as you think.