It’s a connected world, and Google is moving to connect it a little more tightly this week for Gmail account holders.
The search-engine giant on Monday announced a new innovation from Gmail Labs that aims to streamline personal connectivity by tethering its Web-based e-mail program with its calendar function and Google Docs.
“Google is responding to user feedback by introducing the calendar and docs gadgets into Gmail,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. “In particular, the calendar gadget is useful. But it’s also a way for Google to reinforce usage and build awareness of other Google services. And more broadly, Google is increasingly integrating its services and using gadgets or widgets to do so.”
Responding to Gmail Feedback
Sterling is on to something with the “useful” observation. Until now, Gmail users had to open separate tabs in a browser, accessing Gmail on one screen and Google Calendar and Google Docs on additional screens. Gmail Labs’ latest project integrates the trio of Web-based products in the name of convenience. The new “lab experiments” let consumers add gadgets to the left navigation bar, next to Chat and Labels.
“We’ve worked with the engineers from the calendar and docs teams on two highly requested features: A simple way to see your Google Calendar agenda and get an alert when you have a meeting, and a gadget that shows a list of your recently accessed Google Docs and lets you search across all of your documents right from within Gmail,” Gmail engineer Dan Pupius wrote on the company’s blog.
Continued Experimentation
Beyond these additions, a third lab lets Gmail users add any gadget to the Web-based e-mail interface by pasting in the URL of its XML spec file (e.g. http://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml). Less patient Gmail users, though, may want to wait until Google works the bugs out.
“We realize…