14 DAY TRIAL // Google has been building Google+ into everything it does, more obviously in some places than in others. The integration in Gmail has been subtle but what is there is rather useful, in the Contacts for example.
More recently though, Gmail has added Google+ posts to the people widget, also a recent addition. Thus, you would be able to see what the people you were communicating with were sharing on Google+.
Now, Gmail is improving on that by adding thumbnails for the photos and the videos in Google+ posts included in the people widget.
"We're expanding recent Google+ posts in the people widget to include thumbnails of the photos and videos shared in the post," Gmail announced on Google+.
That's just half of the integration, it goes both ways. A while back, Gmail added the ability to share YouTube videos in emails directly to your Google+ stream.
Given than an awful lot of people still share a lot of stuff with each other via email, the ability to have an interesting video posted on Google+ with a couple of clicks is probably a good idea.
Gmail is going forward and is now enabling the functionality for images in emails as well.
"We’re also making it easier to share inline images -- just hover your mouse over the image in your email and you will see an option to share it on Google+," Gmail wrote.
Users already had the possibility of sharing images in attachments. Now it works for embedded images as well. Chances are, people that are going to share some images with you are going to put them in attachments or just share a link.
More likely, promotional emails will contain embedded images and image backgrounds don't really sound like the kind of thing you'd want to share with your friends.