Live Internet Television

Here at the blog we don’t talk too much about ivi TV, because it’s not shipping yet (When it is, we’ll still be appropriately sparing with company-centric information, making sure we avoid making the sales pitch). That said, one of the coolest things about ivi TV will be the way you can watch TV as it airs, live on your computer desktop while doing other things. Got dual monitors? Sheer heaven! You can be at work and still catch that morning show interview or press conference, watch the market, etc.

Meebo is a company who is building some of that same sort of magic in the messaging and email realm — integrating important real-time information into your desktop life.

The web-based chat service already centralizes instant messages from AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, Facebook, MySpace, and more. Folding in emails from different accounts across the Web is a logical next step. In fact, Meebo already tiptoed into the email arena this morning with a new feature which appeared in its Windows desktop notifier

A new “Mail” tab can now be found in preferences, allowing Meebo users to “Enable mail notifications for these accounts:” It then lists the IM accounts you’ve already signed up for on Meebo (which makes sense, since generally you use the same username and password for your email as you do for your IM within any given service such as Yahoo or Gmail/Gtalk or Facebook). When you get a new email, you get a notification pop up at the bottom of your computer screen, just like you do for new IMs. When you click on the notification, it takes you to the underlying email service.

Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg characterizes this as a “convenience feature” for desktop users: “Basically, we’re creating the same bridge between the webmail services and the desktop that we’ve already created between Meebo’s web site and the desktop.”

(Source TechCrunch)

I’ve used Meebo for a long time (since back when they posted pictures of themselves and their little office space on the IM background pane). I am interested to see if integrating gmail notifications will be useful to me. One of the cool things about Meebo already is that its browser tab flashes a notification & plays a sound when a new message is received, so you can easily juggle browsing with messaging all in one app interface.

We’re building ivi TV to be as comfortable and to have the same plays-nicely feel with everything else you’re doing while at your computer.