Feature
Yesterday Big G tided over users eager for some Google I/O news with a small treat: contextual gadgets. These gadgets draw information from Web applications, social networks, business services and other systems, and place it in your Gmail account.
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"Starting today, third-party developers can build Gmail contextual gadgets and distribute them in the Google Apps Marketplace. These gadgets can display information from social networks, business services, Web applications and other systems, and users can interact with that data right within Gmail," wrote Chandrashekar Raghavan, the product manager for Google Apps extensions, in an official blog post.
If you're a Gmail user, you've probably already seen the concept in action (YouTube, Picasa and Google Docs previews), but now third party developers are able to build their own gadgets and distribute them in the Google Apps Marketplace:
There are several gadgets available already, including Gist, which brings together information from across the Web about people you're corresponding with -- such as profiles, company news, etc. -- and Smartsheet for sales and project management.
"Like any other application in the Google Apps Marketplace, a Google Apps domain administrator can install a contextual gadget from the Marketplace with just a few clicks," continued Raghavan. "Both before and during the install process, administrators can review the portions of an email the gadget will have access to, and can revoke that permission at any time from their control panel."
To see a complete list of the gadgets Google currently offers, head on over here. Otherwise, hold time for the Google I/O conference, which begins later on today.
