Flour Power

Eh, this is quite neat. There’s a new Gmail Labs feature that enables previews in messages that contain links to Youtube videos, Flickr and Picasa photos and Yelp reviews. So, with the Youtube Previews feature enabled, if someone sends me an email with some Youtube links, this is what I’ll see:

Very handy indeed. No need to click through to Youtube. I can watch the videos right from inside Gmail. Too bad it doesn’t work on playlists.

And a link to a Picasa Web Album turns into:

If you want to link to individual pictures, though, you’ll have to pay attention to the link you’re sending. Be sure to copy it from the address bar, don’t use the “Link to this photo” option on the right side of Picasa Web Albums. For example:

http://picasaweb.google.com/farinha/KrakowMar08#5201735599173133954 - Works
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Xtusb0M4D12GFJ8inb6C1A?feat=directlink – Does not work

Flickr previews work in the same way. Both album and single picture links work:

To activate these features just go to Settings, then choose the Labs tab and enable the ones you want.

(via Gmail Blog)