Gmail's new feature: - Web Clips

So what is new at Gmail today you ask! It’s Web Clips. What is Web Clips?

Web Clips shows you news headlines, Gmail tips, blogs, any RSS and Atom feed, relevant sponsored links, and more -- right at the top of your inbox and messages. Receive updates from your favorite sites without having to leave Gmail! “

I logged into one of my Gmail accounts today to find out that Gmail has a new feature. A bit more fiddling with it and I was on my way to use the new feature with feeds that I wanted to see. But why bother with this feature when Google already had Google Reader ? If you are like me then you probably subscribe to a lot of feeds and then when the week is busy, you just don’t get time to read, even the feeds that you really care about and want to read. So at times I don’t get to read any feeds at all.

I use Gmail a lot, when I think email, I think Gmail. Even my work email is mirrored to Gmail account. So now using Web Clips I can subsribe to the feeds that are on my top priority reading list and just read them while still using Gmail. I don’t have to switch windows or open new ones. It’s cool!

What’s the down side? It will be distracting me from my real work sometimes. People write catchy headlines and then we are tempted to read what they are talking about. So be careful, don’t get distracted.

One feature I will like is auto rotate news items on a timely basis. I mean keep it 5–10 seconds and give users the option to control that feature. At the moment I either have to click on next icon or I see another news item when I refresh the page.

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