Google is Going to Add Some Crazy Social Networking to GMail Tomorrow?

Word from the Wall Street Journal is that Google will be implementing (probably in some beta form) a new social networking feature into GMail (along with other Google products). Most likely it will be something that works along the lines of Facebook and twitter. It would allow you to post updates and status messages just like the other social networking sites. More to come at 1 p.m. tomorrow. [NY Times]

Google Tasks

Google Tasks has been around for a while, but over time it has become spread out through gmail, Google calendar, and mobile. Good for writing down tasks or taking notes.

Avoid Google Ads When You Send GMail.

GMail ads can be annoying and seem very useless for the most part. There are some words however that result in the ads being taken off. Most of them are curse words and other are about murder or sex. But how can you possibly send an email to someone like your boss without ads and without cursing him off or talk about killing people?

The following phrase seems to do the trick:

I enjoy the massacre of ads. This sentence will slaughter ads without a messy bloodbath.

Check out the before picture above and the after picture below. [Lifehacker]

Recover Your GMail Password via SMS

I think it's pretty hard to forget or lose your gmail password. But if you do, you can now recover it via SMS. Simply head over to your account settings and add your cell phone number. Then, the next time you lose your password, you can send it to yourself via text.

New in Gmail Labs: Automatic Translation

You can now translate emails within Gmail using the new Automatic Message Translation feature in Labs. Simply go into Google Labs, enable the features and the next time you get a message in a foreign language (or one other than your own), you'll be able to convert it to one that you can understand easier.

You can even have entire email conversations in two (or more) languages and both (or all) parties will be able to understand eachother. [Gmail Blog]

Gmail Blog also had this comic on how scripture was formed when two people couldn't communicate verbally.

Consilidate Tabs Using GMail Web Search Box

Next time you want to email a link to a friend, use Gmail's Web Search Box. All you have to do is enable it in Google Labs. A new search box will appear in your Gmail. You can then use that box to Google search for the link you need and put it in your email.

It's not a huge thing, but it's definitely better than having to open up a new tab. [GMail Blog]

Insert Images in Your Gmail Messages

Wooo hoo! Now you can insert images into your gmail messages thanks to Gmail Labs. Simply enable the feature in Labs and you'll have a new icon when you're writing out emails. It allows you to simply insert a image into your email. Finally!

Gmail, Google Calendar Updated for iPhone, Android

The updated Gmail and Google Calendar are much improved and allow batch actions (ie delete all selected). It's also a lot faster. Updates are being rolled out as you read this and may take a few days.

This Lifehacker table shows why iPhone users might want to use the mobile app instead of the native mail feature and Android users are probably more likely to use the native feature.

Gmail Search Autocomplete Makes Finding Emails Easier

Check out Gmail's new autocomplete feature in Gmail Labs. It brings out a drop box to help you find what you're looking for. You can even search for specific attachments such as documents or photos. So if you search for photos, Gmail will search for .jpeg, jpg, and .png attachments. Neat and useful. Exactly what you expect from Gmail. [Lifehacker]

Don't Get Taken by Gmail's April Fool's Joke

Gmail always has a neat April Fool's Joke to entertain and sometimes trick us. Here is this years. It is Gmail Autopilot that lets Gmail automatically answer your many emails because you don't have time to answer every single one. Yes, it can even answer your im chats from inside gmail! Sike! Here's the link for the joke or click the image below. You can also find it at the top right corner of your Gmail, next to the labs. Below is some of the FAQ section from the joke.

FAQ

How does Gmail mirror my communication style?

The more Gmail messages Autopilot can sample, the better. With fewer than 100 messages, there may not be enough data to calibrate Autopilot effectively. You can adjust tone, typo propensity, and preferred punctuation from the Autopilot tab under Settings.

You may want to log in every week or so to ensure Autopilot is calibrated optimally.

Does Autopilot work for Gmail chat too?

Yes. Chat was actually simpler to build, given the natural language headway made by Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA. While many claim ELIZA oft times passed the Turing test, Gmail Autopilot passes with 99.9% accuracy due to the inclusion of human-like qualities such as compassion and wisdom and CADIE's related ability to calibrate to match your chat style.

What happens if a sender and recipient both have Autopilot on?

Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot's responses and further messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you have no interest.

Undo Send [Not an April Fool's Joke Anymore]

Last year, Gmail's April Fool's joke was undo send. This would give you the ability to undo a sent message. I'm sure everyone has had the "oops" moment where you realize that you sent something to the wrong person or forgot to add something in the message. Well, luckily, now you can undo send.

Go into Google Labs and enable the feature (yes, it's real). Undo Send gives you about 5 seconds to undo a sent email. Soon as you hit send a "sending...cancel" label comes up. If you hit cancel, it'll cancel. A moment after that, you'll see a undo send link that will be there for a good 5 seconds. Plenty of time to realize your mistake. Thank you Google for improving Gmail once again.

My only question is whether or not this mean that google "holds" your mail from being sent for 5 seconds, or does it actually stop/cancel/erase the email from the other person's inbox? Either way, pretty cool.

Expect to See Your Voicemail in Your Gail Soon [ooooohh]m

According to Lifehacker, and my own tests, if you use labels in Gmail, you can't create a label titled "voicemail" You will get a error like the one above saying that that name has already been taken. But if you scroll through your labels, you will see that you don't have a label named "voicemail"

Instead you get the following message: "Sorry, you can't create a label named "voicemail" (it's a reserved system label). Please try another name."

It's because Google has taken the liberty of creating a label with that name. Why? Well considering that a few days ago, Google introduced Google Voice, we can safely assume that Google will be trying to soon bring your Google Voice inbox into your Gmail inbox. Hence, whenever you get a voicemail, you'll get a verbatim transcript (maybe even audio attachment?) as an email. Very, very cool and, as usual for Google, useful! [Lifehacker]