Gmail Tip: Twitter Gadget
May 14th, 2009 (9:00am) Jenny Kortina 15 CommentsTweet This (167)
Twitter is has become a crucial part of my online life: I use it for my personal brand management, as a news source, and as a resource for answering any questions I might have. When I’m on the go, I use the popular Twitter client Tweetie on my iPhone,but when I’m sitting at my computer I use the Twitter Gadget for Gmail. I prefer using the web interface simply because it’s extremely lightweight — and I have yet to find a desktop client that I like.
Having Twitter inside Gmail is awesome. It’s a simple text box that sits in the lower left-hand corner of my Gmail window. I keep Gmail open in a tab all day, so whenever I want to tweet something, I simply pop over to my Gmail tab, scroll down and type in my message. I end up using other computers a lot, and it’s much easier to log into just one account, Gmail, instead of two separate accounts, Gmail and Twitter.
I also have a URL-shortening gadget installed in my Gmail that resides directly above my Twitter gadget, which makes tweeting even more dreamy. I can shorten a link and post it without ever navigating to a new window.
The gadget’s feature set is everything you need (from its site):
- OAuth authentication, your Twitter account password is not required.
- Supports multiple Twitter accounts*
- Mark all as read (like Google Reader)*
- Automatically refresh
- Reply, Re-tweet inline
- View reply to inline
- Gmail look and feel
- SSL support*
- Share tweets with your friends(your Gmail friends group’ contacts)*
- Twitter Search
(*These features are awesome!)
To install the Twitter Gmail Gadget:
- Navigate to the “Settings” section of your Gmail
- Click the “Labs” tab
- Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to the “Add any gadget by URL” and click the “Enable” radio button
- Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page
- In the “Settings” of your Gmail you should now have a “Gadget” tab. Click on it.
- In the “Add Gadgets by URL” box paste: “https://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml” and then click the “Add” button.
- You should now have a Twitter gadget on the left-hand side of your Gmail. Enter your Twitter username and password, let it authenticate, and you’re good to go.
What Gmail gadgets do you use?
Tags: Gmail, gmail gadget, twitter
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I’m not sure I should try this — could adding twitter into Gmail make it tempting to twitter too often and not get work done?
@Meryl yeah it might actually cause a distraction. have to have willpower to have it in there
Oh, I’m SOOOO tempted. Meryl & Jenny, I understand all too well. Can’t…tear…self…away!!!!! It’s sounding like I need a Twitter support group
@Meryl no more distracting than twhirl popping up a notification every 5 minutes :)
@Grouptivity and Jenny — That does it. I am not loading the gadget in Gmail. I am in Twitter enough as is without any help from apps. Only time I use Twitter apps is when I participate in a chat.
@Simon, that’s why I don’t use Twhirl, Tweetdeck or anything outside of Twitter web. I learned my lesson the first time I downloaded them.
I much prefer the “real” TwitterGadget, http://www.twittergadget.com, much more polished, with a much more advanced feature set (including integrated URL shortening, media upload, inline media preview, reverse short URL lookup, integrated search, follow, unfollow, keyboard shortcuts, @ reply autocomplete), to name a few ;-)
http://www.twittergadget.com/how_to_install.html
Which URL shortening gadget do you have setup?
You can check out one more useful tool – CloudBerry Twitter plug-in for IE and for FireFox that helps you to post excerpts from the websites you visit with a click of the button and attach a short URL to the source page http://twitter.cloudberrylab.com/
@jerrykidd i use bitly’s url shortner gmail plugin and love it
Great post. Can you share how you configure multiple twitter accounts with this gadget?
Thanks again.
Wow. Love the Twitter gadget.