Google is planning to add streaming status updates and video-viewing capabilities to Gmail in an attempt to bring the service more in line with social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
It's an attempt at trying to get users to turn to Gmail as a place they can go to see what's up with their friends. But whether users will want to blend sending email with browsing friends' content is unclear.
Yahoo added a similar feature to Yahoo Mail last year, allowing users to see whether friends have uploaded a photo to a site like Flickr, for example.
