Gmail WebClips

You know, I was about to get really annoyed with Google for adding to their Gmail service the new "WebClips" feature, which puts a line above your inbox with a sponsored headline and a link. Then I hit the "customize" button and realized you can put any feed you want into the WebClips blurb, remove the ones you don't want, and even turn WebClips off entirely.



Every time I think Google has reneged on their promise to do no evil, it turns out they've implemented a seemingly evil feature in a benevolent way. About a week ago I began forwarding my stomptokyo.com address to Gmail and I haven't regretted it once. Nice going.

Addendum: I should have checked the Gmail What's New page - apparently they also added auto-detection of addresses and tracking numbers within messages, which will generate companion links in the sidebar to Google maps or the tracking site of the shipper in question. (This isn't perfect, but when it works it's pretty cool.)

Also, Microsoft Office documents can be viewed from within Gmail. Again, not perfect – it won't handle graphics, but it's still much handier than downloading and launching a separate application when you just need to get something quickly out of a Word document in your inbox.