Keep Track of Your Favorite Blogs in Gmail
If you've ever wondered what the headlines at the top of your Gmail inbox are, they're called "web clips", not ads. Gmail has a preselected amount of news headlines from various sites across the web that you can customize to have displayed across the top of your inbox as you check your mail. Now you're no longer stuck with the default selections and can add your own selections.
Web Clips in Your Inbox
Web Clips are displayed right above your messages in your inbox. To customize your selection of webclips, head to the 'Settings' section of your Gmail account. Listed in your settings should be a tab that reads 'Web Clips'. Select this tab and you'll be presented with a list of default Web Clips. The default selection categories range from News, Business, Lifestyle, Sports, Tech, and Fun.
Customize Your Web Clips
You can choose from any of the listed sites or simply add your own list of blogs. To add your own selections, use the search box to type in the URL of your favorite blog. Google will attempt to find the RSS feed for the site you entered. If it's found, click the add button and you're all set.
The Benefits of Web Clips
I've only recently started using web clips thanks to a tip from our very own Lead Writer, Marshall Kirkpatrick. They're a great way to keep track of those sites that you wouldn't want to miss a thing from. They can also help when trying to manage both your email and feeds first thing in the morning. Use Gmail's web clips for those sites that you'd like to get the latest updates from while you check your email. It'll be a lot less clutter and once less thing to multitask.
Comments
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Do you think any tech person does not know this?
Posted by: Varun Mahajan | August 9, 2008 11:01 AM
Varun, don't bet on it. In my case, I've worked in IT for over 10 years, and consider myself a techie person. Gmail has been my home on the web for quite some time now, and to be honnest, I never paid attention to this line. I did think it was just another ad from Google and my eyes are trained to ignore those things by now.
Not that this is going to become my source of information, but I changed the sources and my eyes might flicker over that line once in a while now, knowing it's "real" information.
Posted by: Daniel Gélinas | August 9, 2008 11:20 AM
I'd have to agree that it's not news in the sense of being at all new, as Web Clips have existed since before Google Reader, IIRC.
Also, this is not a great way for me to get every bit of information from my favorite sites, since the clips are random, as far as ordering or priority.
A better use, IMO, is to select feeds that have high quanity with varying amounts of quality or relevance, like deal or sale sites, so if I'm browsing and see it pop up something I'm interested in while I'm doing something else, then I can go and read more.
Posted by: Wayne | August 9, 2008 11:38 AM
Now, if Google were more of an integrated platform, there would be a way to pull those feeds from Google Reader. If I clicked on it, it would be marked as "Read". Otherwise, the items would also stay unread in Google Reader. I'm not sure, however, that I want my feeds to distract me from what I'm doing in my email. It seems like this is what a dashboard should be doing.
Posted by: Daniel Bachhuber
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August 9, 2008 11:39 AM
This is so awesome. Thank you for posting this. I have started my customization and Read Write Web is on my list!
Posted by: Kristen | August 9, 2008 11:47 AM
If you do not customize your web clips then google will filter in advertisements every so often.
Posted by: Brandon | August 9, 2008 4:34 PM
Thanks for this post. This is cool
Posted by: Queenbee | August 10, 2008 11:00 AM
Thanks for the post. I have started customizing now. Great post man.
Posted by: Mahaneesh chandra | August 11, 2008 1:18 AM
Wow, I never knew this for Gmail. Got to love those features. Makes browsing the internet so much easier in less time. But then again it's just another way of advertising. Better change mine now. Thanks for the great info. Keep them coming.
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Posted by: vhiel | August 11, 2008 9:45 AM
I didn't know that. Thank you so much...
Posted by: MGA | August 12, 2008 9:37 AM
Mmh...Interesting. What's the difference from RSS of these blogs? Or it's just using google to collect the info.
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