Rediff is taking the threat from Orkut and Facebook very seriously – they do understand that they can’t build another orkut/FB, so integration is the way to go. Rediffmail has integrated news feeds from Orkut and Facebook into the mailbox enabling users to stay up-to-date on the activities of their friends/family on the sites.

Once you signin to your Rediffmail account, you can provide your Orkut/FB details and Rediff will automatically import news feeds from thse chosen social networking sites.

While this may seem like a simple feature add, at the depth lies the fight

for ‘starting page‘!

With email transforming into becoming a dashboard of users activities on the internet, introduction of feeds from social networks into Rediffmail is an evolutionary step in the direction to make Rediffmail a more social email application. The new feature will help users to conveniently, and efficiently keep abreast of the activities of their friends and family on various social networking platforms – Rediff CTO, Venki Nishtala

What really happens is that most of the web workers tend to check their email first thing in the morning and any email solution that shows a snapshot of activities from other socionets stands a huge chance of being the starting page – i.e. stickiness.

Google/Yahoo are taking a different approach with iGoogle and MyYahoo – i.e. personalized pages/starting points that integrates email accounts.

What is the first thing you check in the morning?

• Updates from Socionets? or,
• Email?

What’s your take?