send SMS chat messages from Gmail, to send video messages and to create to-do lists. I can also access Google Calendar and Google Docs data from small widgets in my Gmail sidebar. And today, a widget has appeared that may let me to close yet another tab in my browser window: TwitterGadget.
While TwitterGadget isn't made by Google (or Twitter for that matter), its creators are taking advantage of Gmail's ability to add third-party widgets (similar to what Remember the Milk has done). What you get is a small widget sitting on the left-hand side of Gmail that allows you to not only send tweets (Twitter messages), but look at all of yours. Yes, this gadget includes your friends' streams, a replies tab, a direct message tab, a favorites tab and an "all" tab.
You can also easily add select symbols to your tweets from a drop-down menu in TwitterGadget. Maybe you've seen these before on Twitter but didn't know how to make them -- a heart, a star, a moon, scissors, etc -- with TwitterGadget they're just a click away. Another nice feature is that you can set the rate at which it refreshes your tweet stream.
The user interface of TwitterGadget could use a little work -- okay, it's ugly -- but it's very functional, and it's also very responsive. I'll take that over beauty any day (well almost any day).
Now I just need a way to combine Google Reader with Gmail to make it the ultimate time-suck web site.