I really do like Zemanta the discovery and recommendation engine.  It’s my favorite blogging plug-in, and I am so hooked on it that I even declared I’d rather pay for it than lose it, despite the sometimes funny pics.

Today Zemanta released several new features – some I just love, others leave me scratching my head.

The ones I love:

• Epanding the discovery engine which from now on can recommend contextually relevant video, audio, Google Maps and other rich objects.
• Content verticals for books, music, technology, green, health, travel, gaming, shopping and wine. This will no doubt enhance the recommendations (wonder if it means I will no longer get the above pic for this tech-business blog?).
  

Now, about that head-scratching: Zemanta now works with Yahoo Mail and Gmail. Here’s a summary video:

Zemanta on Gmail from zemanta on Vimeo.

Essentially the same functionality I came to love with blogs, but now available while composing email. But why would I do that?  Unlike blogging, where I welcome additional information, illustration, even tips, when I send an email, I want to be concise, to the point, and pretty much know what  I have to say myself.  In fact  I would love to cut down on email, so anything that may be of public interest goes on the blog, or Twitter, or …

But that’s just me, and we all have different usage patterns – do you find Zemanta for Email useful?

Related posts:

• Pimp my browser: how to turn Firefox into a blogging machine
• Zemanta now helps you write e-mails
• Hands on: Add photos, links to Gmail, Yahoo with Zemanta