Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Twitter For Gmail - Tweeting From Your Gmail

You might have come to wonder how you would be able to make use of Twitter for Gmail...well, wonder no more! Twitter clients have been specifically designed for use in Gmail, iGoogle and Google Wave. One client which is most popular and most commonly used as a Google gadget for this purpose is TwitterGadget. It is basically an auto-refreshing Twitter client that when installed in Gmail, allows you to have access to Twitter's main features like viewing direct messages, replies and posting updates.

This is ideal for those who would be keeping their Gmail accounts open most of the time on one of their browser tabs. If you are one these people, you will find this of great use and have easy access to tweeting from an interface you spend much time on. This would make your Gmail account more of an all-in-one access point (assuming you have made use of the other Gmail gadgets) that could mean you would able to do your daily tasks from just this one interface. Now that is convenience.

This would only be useful to frequent users of their Gmail, iGoogle and/or Google Wave accounts and Twitter and is not something that would be much appreciated by those that hardly make use of such services. Also, this easy access to twitter from your Gmail account could mean another added distraction to your doing your work. You just happen to be checking your e-mail one time at work and you decide to just check up on the direct message you have just received and then before you know it, you get carried away tweeting and reading up other messages and set aside what you had to do in the first place. It can be a very tempting distraction for a twitterati and will probably need some good exercising of your willpower to not be led away from what you should be doing.

Now, you already probably have a good enough idea on what Twitter Gadget is and may have decided to get it or not. If not, it is probably best that you stop reading any further since there won't be anything you'd gain from this article anymore. For those that do think this Twitter for Gmail client worth trying out, please do read on for how to get it up on your Gmail account.

First of all, you just need to have custom gadgets enabled in your Gmail account by going to the Labs page under Settings. Click on the 'Enable' button for the 'Add Any Gadget by URL' feature and then save changes. Once that is done, you will be able to access the Gadgets page under Settings. Go there and enter this "https://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml" and then click the "Add" button. Twitter Gadget should now appear on the left-hand side of your Gmail interface. All you have to do is enter your Twitter account info on that client and you're good to go!

Thanks for reading and I sincerely hope this Twitter for Gmail article has been of help to you.

2 comments: