Mountain View, California — Small things does matters as global search engine behemoth As Google continues its quest to make ‘one nation under Google+’ more visible across all of its services by further integrating it within Gmail that, among other improvements, increases Google+ circle integration.
The recent changes to Google’s Gmail enhances on the initial implementation of the social network back in December, which saw Circles appear within emails and on the sidebar, which now includes among other things quick access to contact details when viewing past conversations.
However, if previous email searches for contacts have brought up relevant email messages, the updated search results will now reveal more information about your contact details in addition to the contact’s profile photo and previous emails sent from and to them.
Although, this feature may not be great but it makes it easy to get contact information of your contacts with search. Google mentioned that users can also initiate a chat or make a call from within the searches. And since the Google+ integration has been improved, any changes made on a specific contact’s Google+ profile will be reflected in the searches as well.
Google further explained on its company blog: “When you select a circle, you will now see profile photos of people in that circle at the top right of the page. Plus, when you click on these images you will be taken directly to search results with contact details.”
Besides, it also displays on which circle they are in your Google+, if they are not in your circles you can add them instantly. This is all done in a snap and it is really quite useful. You can always get this information from contacts, but you have to go contacts and search, this way the information is right there just a click away.
Also, if your contacts possesses a Google+ profile, the information will be kept up to date, meaning if they change their profile info, it will reflect immediately in your Gmail contacts info.
Apart from the nifty changes, Google has also enriched the Google+ circle integration and circle search. When you select a circle now you will now be able to see profile photos of people who are in that circle at the top right of the page, clicking on the images will take you directly to search results with the corresponding details of the contact. Search and filters are now supported in circles too.
Now you can use search filters for searching circles. For instance, you can find messages from a circle by typing circle:[circle name] in the search box. Typing has:circle, on the other hand, will allow you to find emails from any of your circled contacts. “This means you can now view all the unread emails from your ‘Friends’ circle or automatically star every message that comes from your ‘VIP’ circle,” Google said. Google is rolling these updates now.
Nevertheless, this update may seem cosmetic, but it is not the only Google+ improvement that has been incorporated into Gmail.