Gmail adds photo and video thumbnails from Google+ to people widget

As expected, more of Google’s products are getting the social treatment with Google+ functionality. The latest project to get further “Plussed” is Gmail, and the features are actually quite handy.

The “people” widget that shows up when you hover over one of your friends in Gmail, will now include thumbnails of recent photos and videos they’ve posted on Google+, along with the other recent updates they’ve shared.

Here’s what the team had to say about the feature:

Gmail and Google+ are both great places to share images and videos with your friends, and we’re always looking for ways to make this easier. We’ve been showing recent Google+ posts in the people widget for some time, and a few weeks ago we added the ability for you to share YouTube videos from your email to your Google+ stream.

Today, we’re expanding recent Google+ posts in the people widget to include thumbnails of the photos and videos shared in the post. We’re also making it easier to share inline images in emails — just hover your mouse over the image in your email and you will see an option to share it on Google+. We’re still rolling out the update, so if you don’t see it yet, sit tight.

Here’s what the people widget might look like once the feature hits your Gmail account:

The ability to share an inline image from your inbox by just hovering over it is a handy addition to the share button that Gmail added for Google+ last year.

This is further proof that Google is all about social, and there’s no turning back now. It’s also further proof that when people are using any Google product, they’ll also be a Google+ user, whether they visit the destination site or not.