Google launches Gmail tasks in the wake of I Want Sandy’s death
The timing is serendipitous. As an entire group of I Want Sandy refugees are searching for a replacement task management tool, Google launches a new labs feature for creating tasks in Gmail. It looks like the search giant is listening and wants to continue expanding Gmail as a nervous center for online productivity.
Right now the Gmail task functionality is good but somewhat limited. It allows the creation of new tasks easily, and it’s also possible to convert e-mails into tasks. Those are features that have long been present in Microsoft’s venerable Outlook application, and it’s interesting that Google waited this long for an obvious opportunity.
I Want Sandy based its entire business on creating task management through e-mail, and Google’s Gmail task experiment is a long shot from providing all the same functionality, but it’s a nod toward that concept of centralizing task management with communication. And right now, e-mail is one of the most popular ways people communicate, despite how much buzz companies like Twitter get on a regular basis.
A similar concept is the one stop shopping stores like Wal-Mart, and Meijer which aim to bring in enough selection that consumers don’t have to go anywhere else to meet their regular needs. E-mail can be the one stop communications hub.
After enabling the task feature from the labs menu in Gmail, “just click in an empty part of your [task] list and start typing. No buttons to click and it’s saved automatically. Hit Return and you’ve got a new task right there,” according to Google.
If Google continues to expand the features offered with this labs experiment it could potentially attract new users and increase usage by existing account holders. Both are good things for the built-in ad-serves, which would benefit from the additional screen time. The company also has a forum going where it’s looking for additional features to add.
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December 10th, 2008
“…Gmail as a nervous center for online productivity.”
I, as millions of others have to be discouraged at this level of writing. I suggest a course in writing for Matt Jansen which might help him to be more clear in the subjects he is writing about.
Oh, yes, and a “nervous center”? Hahaha. There are any number of grammatical errors, any number of assumptions made by the author. and although he may know what I want Sandy is, there is no guarantee that readers will know.