Google Adds Custom Themes, Beta Features to Gmail

In their continuing quest for ultimate email domination, web email provider Gmail has today added the ability to choose from a wide variety of themes developed both by the Gmail Team and by independent artists. The themes are similar to those provided in Google's Homepage provider, iGoogle, in several ways."In some cases, you can customize by location. Some themes change during the day, and we use the location information you provide to correctly time these changes with your local sunrise, sunset, and weather."

These changes come in addition to the labs feature released late last month, which allows members of the public to test out new Gmail features selectively before they are implemented system-wide.

The customization seems to be a direct challenge to desktop clients, which have long since offered a plugin system. The ability to customize your view has been a popular prospect on the web, as well. Social networking site MySpace, which allow you to upload custom stylesheets for your page or use a built-in generator, has more new users every year than rival site Facebook, which does not have such functionality, has had in its entire life.

Both new features are accessable from the settings tab of the Gmail interface.