Web based email services are increasingly more and more popular. Yahoo! currently losing market share to Google’s Gmail service. This can be partially attributed to the rise of Android devices, but mostly because Gmail is simply a powerful, reliable and easy to use webmail service.
For years, Gmail users have seen an ever-expanding list of features for their web-based email service. These include labels, and most recently, the Priority Inbox feature for prioritizing emails. But there are other ways to expand your Gmail service with browser plugins that give power users even more options for the world’s biggest web based email service. Plugins such as Boomerang, Rapportive and Wisestamp have changed the way people use Gmail.
These plugins allow functionality as scheduled emails, socially integrated signatures, and contact relation management. Modern web browsers such as Firefox and Chrome support these extensions (sorry, IE users, you lose again!) and we are beginning to see integration with other webmail services as well as mail clients such as Outlook and Thunderbird.
Rapportive: A Social CRM Tool for Your Email
Replace Google Ads with relevant information you’re actually going to read? Yes, please! Rapportive is a plugin that extends Gmail’s contact system with direct links about the people you’re contacting. It essentially replaces the Sponsored Links found on the right side of the Gmail interface with a short informational bio about your contact.
The bio show your contact’s recent tweets, links to social profiles (Linkedin, Facebook), and allows for notes on the person. Other than simply replacing the right side ads, Rapportive also helps you expand your network. For example: You have a contact who you email regularly but are not connected to on the social web.
Rapportive searches the web for that person’s information, and now you not only have links to connect with them on Linkedin and Facebook, but you can see their latest tweets.
All without doing any searching or going through any lists. It’s automatic, it’s useful, and it works. While Rapportive is a third party plugin that does a Gmail user’s login credentials stay within GMail, Rapportive doesn’t store or have access to your password. Rapportive is currently available for the Firefox, Safari and Chrome browsers. Click here to Download Rapportive.