Gmail’s People Widget fails when compared to Rapportive!

More than a month ago, Gmail introduced the People Widget. It was being rolled out over a few days but then days turned to weeks and now after a month-long wait, most Gmail users have the people widget available on their accounts.

The People Widget has a lot of useful features like when we click on an email, it shows up on the right hand side with details of the contact. Users can look up recent emails and shared documents. I tested it out with my colleague from work and it seemed to be quite nifty.

Gmail’s People Widget

The obvious idea was to compare with with Rapportive, a Gmail widget that does similar things. I wondered if this People Widget hurt Rapportive. To be more objective I used both of them. After installing Rapportive I got a lot more information in the widget compared to people widget.

Rapportive’s integrated Widget

I took the image above, after installing Rapportive on my Chrome browser. Rapportive is far more informative and shows recent email from relevant contacts just like the People Widget. Best part about Rapportive is that it integrates with the People Widget.

Rapportive offers information on connecting to different networks more proactively, while for similar information to show up with People Widget, the use should have added different networks in this his Google account.

Where People Widget scores over Rapportive!

Rapportive works with the browser and so when you change your browser or the computer itself, users have to install it again. While Gmail’s People Widget will show up automatically as it is inbuilt within Gmail.

Google has announced a new Social feature for sharing information called “Google Plus”. This information shared might make People Widget a nifty tool.

In the meanwhile, I am sticking to Rapportive. What are your views? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Rapportive

Related: Review of Rapportive