Real Life Monopoly Game with Google

Google is partnering with the maker of Monopoly (Hasbro) to release a new game - an online Google Maps version - called Monopoly City Streets. The new game will launch on Wednesday. Monopoly City Streets will provide users the opportunity to compete in a live version of the game with other users around the world.

The fun part is that players will be able to buy any street in the world. Starting with 3 million Monopoly dollars, you can build hotels, houses, football stadiums, castles, skyscrapers and more.

The preview site reads:

On the 9th SEPTEMBER, a world of property empire building on an unimaginable scale will be launched! A live worldwide game of MONOPOLY using Google Maps as the game board. The goal is simple. Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence.

Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use MONOPOLY Chance Cards to sabotage your mates by building Hazards on their streets.

Sounds like fun. Monopoly anyone?

Google Email - "Undo" Feature!

As reported by MarketingVOX: Mere days after Google unveiled an email preview feature for YouTube videos, Yelp reviews and Flickr and Picasa photos, Gmail Labs is introducing yet another feature that enables marketers to preempt a botched email blast.

Undo Send enables users to effectively unsend emails that were prematurely sent — or that contain errors.

The window of opportunity is a small one, however. "This feature can't pull back an email that's already gone; it just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the panic button," writes the Gmail Blog.

"And don't worry – if you close Gmail or your browser crashes in those few seconds, we'll still send your message."

To activate Undo Send, visit Gmail Labs > Settings and switch on "Undo Send." Thereafter, users will see an "Undo" link on every sent email confirmation; once "Undo" is hit, users are sent back to the compose window.

Google Loses Gmail

This past week an announcement was made that Google lost Gmail. What does that mean? Well, apparently Gmail is trademarked and owned by a German venture capitalist in 2001. Google has been trying since 2004 to negotiate and get access to the name but have not been successful.

But, it seems that in the U.S. we will still be able to use Gmail services -- the trademark was in Germany and Google will only be unable to use the Gmail name there. However, there are lawsuits pending in Switzerland, Norway and Monaco.