Google loves and wants to promote the integration of its products, but is it what users want? The tech titan is revamping its Web-based email system, Gmail to include tabs for Google+, Google Offers and Google Play.
The tabs will be called Social, which will include Google+ updates, Promotions, from Google Offers and Zagat, and Updates from Google Play, according to Itamar Gilad, product manager for Gmail. The tabs also offer Forums, which will likely include information from those groups.
Although Gilad writes in a blog post that users can always revert back to Classic View or get rid of the tabs, the tabs are the default for now. While the look of Gmail will be a little different on a laptop, it will be much more different on a handheld. Mobile users will receive Primary email, then navigate to get to the other tabs -- essentially making it easier to ignore.
The roll-out is happening slowly, but Gilad writes that most users will start seeing it in a few weeks.
If anyone has visited YouTube recently, Google has been strongly trying to consolidate Google identities into a single Google+ identity, which is also linked to a Gmail account. It's obviously a way to keep track of its users and their online actions -- as well as selling ads to them -- but users don't have to play the game if they don't want. Users can choose to back to Classic View and refuse to consolidate identities if they don't agree with the new changes.
