Over the past few months I have downloaded and participated in many labs for gmail plugins that are supposed to help with everything from label organization, to allowing me to ‘unsend’ an email (it really comes in handy). But by far my favorite and most used email plugin is Rapportive.

They describe themselves as company that gives rich contact profiles from inside Gmail, but what they do is provide links to social networks from people who email you. Sounds pretty complicated, but all it really does is show you the last few tweets or Facebook updates alongside of the email you are reading.

It comes in handy both personally and professionally. As I mentioned earlier, I prefer getting emails from salespeople that you can tell have been crafted just for you and are not just form emails, and I expect the same out of my emails. Rapportive makes it easier to find out those details about people.

Once you join you can update your profile to include any social networks you want. Here is my profile:

Rapportive also makes it easy to friend/follow/link in with people you already email with.

This is one of the few labs/plugin/apps/whatever you want to call it, that I have actually stuck with and continue to use daily. I highly recommend it for anyone who spends any decent amount of time in Gmail and likes to connect with people on social networks.