Perhaps you’re a hard-charging businessperson who wants clients to know their questions will be answered even if you’re on the beach. Or maybe you’re just someone who feels a need to quietly brag about vacationing overseas. Either way, Google’s got you covered with a new “add your location to your signature” Gmail feature.
Make that sort of covered, at least. On the Official Gmail Blog, Marco Bonechi explains, “[I]n my 20% time, I wrote an experimental Gmail Labs feature that detects your location and appends the city region and country names to your signature.” He later admits, “It’ll use your public IP address to determine your location, so it may not always be that accurate. For example, if you’re at Heathrow airport, IP detection may put you in Germany.”
One way to fix this is to install a version of Google Gears that supports the location module; wi-fi access point signals will come to the rescue. Otherwise, Bonechi told someone in a Google Groups feedback thread that he’s working on an integration with Google Latitude (which hadn’t launched when he started the project).
To start using the new location feature in the meantime is a two-step process. First sign into Gmail, look at the “Labs” tab under “Settings,” and turn on “Location in Signature.” Then adjust your signature preferences to have your location appended.
This feature may not be for everyone, since a lot of folks don’t travel much and won’t want to share details when they do. Location info can be removed from individual emails, though, so even privacy buffs can feel free to test it.
