May 18th 2010 Google released one of its most intriguing API's Contextual Gadgets. I have been wanting an opportunity to start developing with this API and will explain why.  Google has been using context for a long time in its advertising to put up relevant ads and now developers have the ability to display information based on context, to some the possibilities might not be apparent but the possibilities are incredible

Developers can now write gadgets that display relevant information based on text in any of the following Gmail fields

• From
• To
• CC
• Subject
• Body
• Send / Received timestamps

This now allows integration with other systems and gmail.  My favorite possible application of this in integrating with a CRM.  Now as you are writing an email you can have a contextual gadget show you based on the recipients, Lead or Opportunity information in you Gmail window as you add receipients. Or display relevant information on received emails.  The gadget can also support updating the related records right from that Gmail screen.

The API supports using several extractors to access different items in an email, automatically such as extracting phone numbers, URLs, email addresses, stock symbols and more.

Although a CRM is my favorite possibility that is opened up by google contextual gadgets, there are other possibilities as well

• Displaying Photo Albums based on recipients
• Displaying Company Information based on email addresses, or URLs in the Email
• Displaying social network profiles in emails
• To do ltems relating to context
• Adding advertising to support any Gmail gadgets
• Displaying Customer support tickets related to contex, or knowledge base articles.

I hope that with my busy development schedule I am able to get some time to try some things on my own or get a project where I can use it.