Subscribe RSSBut Google was instantaneous to counter and rain on Microsoft's Hotmail parade with the revealing of Gmail contextual gadgets.
Much like the new Windows Charged Hotmail's biggest focus is enabling the use of other applications and functions without leaving the inbox, Google's contextual gadgets represents a new Gmail API that lets Google Apps Marketplace applications mete out relevant information to users in their Gmail, when they're reading a message, Chandrashekar Raghavan, Google apps extensions offshoot manager, wrote in a blog post Tuesday.
"Contextual gadgets in Gmail – like YouTube, Google Docs and Picasa previews – intelligently set forth relevant information from other systems as you read your email, so you can be more efficient without leaving your inbox," Raghavan wrote.
Third-celebration developers can immediately start building Gmail contextual gadgets and distributing them in the Google Apps Marketplace. The gadgets, Google said, can set forth information from social networks,
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