I’ve been traveling for the past couple of weeks, so missed the announcement of Tasks as a new feature in GMail Labs. Given my own interests in tasks in email, this seems to be the most useful Labs feature to surface so far. Also of interest are the nearly 500 threads discussing ideas for future enhancements to the Tasks plugin.

The focus seems to be on lightweight interaction, which is definitely the right approach. To add a new task, for example, you just click in an empty part of the task list and start typing. This seems pretty similar to the style of task interaction pioneered by Remember the Milk, and I’d be interested to know how it compares with RTM’s GMail services, particularly their recently announced RTM GMail gadget that can be added via GMail Labs. Are there any users out there who have experimented with RTM’s tools and can offer insight on the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the new Labs task addition?

There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of tight interaction between email and tasks (yet), but I’m sure this will be in the pipeline for future enhancements.

On the topic of tasks in email, if you’re interested in learning more about how people phrase tasks in email messages, have a look at my recent paper, Requests and Commitments in Email are Complex: Eight Reasons to be Cautious, which I presented at the Australasian Language Technology conference in Hobart earlier this week.