Google moved Thursday to convert its popular Gmail application from a proprietary service into a platform that developers can extend. Its launch of Gmail Labs provides a way to write and deploy modules for the e-mail and chat program.

When users in the U.S. and Britain log in to Gmail, they’ll see a new Labs tab under Settings that will let them activate about a dozen experimental features. Many of the add-ons currently available, however, seem trivial.

For instance, there’s a feature called Superstars that adds new colors for Gmail’s star feature. Another add-on displays friends’ profile pictures in chat. One of the more useful modules allows users to customize keyboard shortcuts for frequent operations.

Giant Focus Group

Writing on an official company blog, product manager Keith Coleman said, “Gmail Labs is a way for us to take lots of the ideas we wouldn’t normally pick and let you all (who use Gmail) decide whether they’re

When users go to the Labs menu, they can easily enable and disable any of the offered modules. “Some of the popular ones will become core parts of the product, and we’ll eventually retire the ones that don’t get much use. We’ve put feedback urls in there, too, so you can discuss a feature with other users and the engineer(s) who wrote it,” Coleman wrote.

In other words, it’s a “giant focus group,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research, in a telephone interview. “They’ve always had a Labs area, where they showcased new ideas. that is a little different considering its closer to the user. It gives them a way to preserve the product and throw new things in,” he added. “It’s a pretty interesting and progressive strategy.”

Will Labs Be Open?

For now, the ability to write new modules for Gmail is…

Orginal post by Top Tech News