Google Gets Pimped and Why You Should Care

Google has been at it again. Dropping new features left and right. We recently talked about the Gmail Labs feature and how you could use it to get stuff done. Now, we’ll walk through a few additional features and see how they can be useful.

Gmail Themes

This has been one of the most exciting features recently released by Google. Primary reason for this, I think, is because people have been clamoring for the ability to put ninjas in their Gmail ever since it was possible in Google Reader. In any case, this is definitely the most visible tweak that Google has made to their services in a while.

Why You Should Care

• Some themes actually change as the day goes on. This will provide obvious visual cues to let you know time is passing you by and help make sure you’re getting stuff done.
• Those of us with multiple Gmail accounts, including Google Apps accounts, can use themes to give context as to which account we’re in. Once you fire off a quick email from the wrong account, you can’t take that back.
• We don’t always look forward to checking email. Most of us don’t even look forward to being in the office. Anything you can do to make your work environment a little more comfortable will help you to be more productive.

Gmail Voice and Video Chat

If you have a video camera and you have a Gmail account, you now have the ability to see and hear friends right inside your Gmail. To test the service, I helped a friend get dressed for a movie date. The quality of the video and audio is great and didn’t skip at all, even though I’m wireless. At first, I didn’t think this feature was all that exciting. There are a few other ways to do video and voice chat. But, after careful consideration, I changed my mind.

Why You Should Care

• You will probably find a large number of your contacts already have both Gmail and a webcam. Getting up and running is simple and won’t require installing and figuring out any new software.
• Sometimes, a quick face-to-face chat can help to move things along faster. In this case, you can have that chat without getting up from your desk, with someone who is across the country.
• Even if you don’t have a webcam, you can just use a microphone to do voice chat. This means you can have direct conversation with people without giving up a phone number.

Google SearchWiki

SearchWiki gives you the ability to actually edit your search results. Let’s say you think you should be at the number one spot for a search on your name: simply drag your link to the top of the page or add it if it’s missing. You can also remove search results that you don’t like and add notes to any result. This is a pretty interesting feature and I’m not sure what the implications of it will be. Only you can see your changes, but you can always click “See All Results for this SearchWiki” to see what changes the community has made.

Why You Should Care

• If you have a blog, website, personal or business brand, or any reputation that you are trying to maintain online, you probably want to go ahead and add a few notes about your site. There is no telling what these notes and rankings could be used for in the future, so get your feedback in early.
• Google will notice if a bunch of people have ranked your site #1 in their personal search results. While we don’t know if this will affect public results in the future, Google has made it clear that they are open to the possibility.
• Any changes you make are saved, so if there are queries you do on a regular basis that could be slightly modified to be more useful to you, make them. The next time you pull up that results page, you’ll be able to find what you want a lot faster.