If you've been keeping up with all the new features in Gmail, you know that it now has the ability to send text messages directly to cell phones as well as conduct video chats. Now, available through Google Labs, is a new gadget that lets you sign into and use Twitter from within Gmail.The number of Twitter clients seems to grow almost every day. The new TwitterGadget for Gmail may not be the robust client made supporting the microblogging service, but it will help you cut down on desktop and browser clutter if you're inclined to use it.

I recently found out about the new gadget and added it to my Gmail home page to reduce the number of open browser tabs I have at a given time. I generally have 10 or more windows open. The fewer the better.

According to the folks who created it, "TwitterGadget is completely Ajax based, meaning, at the user-specified refresh interval, only the status update content is refreshed in-line, on the gadget page. TwitterGadget enables the user to toggle on/off various display elements such as user thumbnails, timestamps, and post sources. Refresh intervals can be set from 3 to 30 minutes, or manual only. Additional information about a poster is available, at a glance, by hovering over their thumbnail image."

The gadget is inserted into Gmail very easily. Go to Gmail Labs and turn on the Gadgets tool. The Gadgets tool will become another tab at the top of your Gmail settings. Click on that and insert: http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml into the text box. Click Save and you're all done. Go back out to Gmail, sign in, and you can use Twitter from your inbox.

Nice!