Enhancements that make a difference - 3 new features from Google

I usually don't write about tools and features other than on a conceptual level, but I make an exception this time. As I use many Google's services, from GMail and Google Reader to Blogger and Google Groups, I subscribe to the feeds from some official and inoffocial Google blogs that write about the tools I use. Several enhancements that I find quite usable have been announced recently and here are three of them:

1. Do more with task lists in Gmail

Now you can do more things with task lists in Gmail. I use tasks lists in Gmail to be on top of things work. I definately won't use the new "Print task list", but I guess some people will (don't). But I might email a task list to myself when I am need to bring it with me on my mobile since there still is no mobile interface to task lists in Gmail.

2. Collaborative editing of albums in Picasa Web

A new feature which is definately a good one is the ability to edit ambums collectively in Picasa Web. Now I can let other members in my family, or friends, upload photos, videos or edit captions.

3. Sharing documents from Google Docs with members in Google Groups

I use Google Groups for different purposes and I agree 100% to the following from a post on the Google Operating System blog:

Google Groups is one of the services that would benefit a lot from an integration with Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and other Google apps. It makes sense to create a document and to collaborate with other group members or to create a calendar and share it with your group

Google has now made all this possible:

We recently rolled out improvements to the way Google Groups interacts with several of our applications. Now, sharing calendars, sites and documents with multiple people is easy — instead of adding people one at a time, you can simply share with an entire Google Group

Just as an example, you an create a spreadsheet in Google Docs and then share the spreadsheet with a group in Google Groups, granting the group members permission to edit. If new people join the group, they automatically get permissions to edit the spreadsheet. If people leave, they loose editing access.