Google may announce the new social features in Gmail as soon as this week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, quoting anonymous sources familiar with the plans.

Google has doubled down on its social Web strategy in recent months, with new hires and plans to devote more energy to understanding the social-media phenomenon. The company has tried to get momentum behind its ideas for several years, but hasn’t gained much traction to date.

Google is having a press conference Tuesday in at Google headquarters in Mountain View to show off the new Gmail features.

It would be an extension of Gmail’s instant-messenger style status messages, which are displayed along with presence information and currently aren’t archived for search or perusal

Gmail is one of Google’ most popular products, and this new social status update feature would be a “product innovation” within Gmail.