Microsoft Hotmail embeds LinkedIn, Posterous and more into email service

The Active Views project is intended to keep users in Hotmail when they get a link to other sites. So if you get a picture link sent to you from Flickr, say, you will be able to see it without leaving Hotmail – ditto YouTube videos.

Yesterday Hotmail announced an extension to Active Views, meaning more types of businesses will be included. From now on, users who get emails from Netflix will be able to update their movie selections from the email. Blogging site Posterous will enable comments on posts directly from the email, with similar services available for LivingSocial, LinkedIn and Your Digits. No news on Facebook yet, though.

“In traditional email with just a text link, the percentage of people clicking through is less than 10%. With Active Views, customers are clicking on the video control in about 25% of all email messages with a video,” Windows wrote in its blog.