You Can Save the New Gmail Ads

Google is testing a new and completely different format of ads inside Gmail as was first spotted by Richard Waters of the Financial Times.

A thumbnail image of the ad appear in the sidebar, a place normally reserved for contextual text ads, and clicking this image will open a larger version of that ad in the same Gmail window.

Richard writes:

The small box in the upper right hand corner, which has a thumbnail image in it, was all that appeared alongside the original email. The text advertises an upcoming movie, “One Day”.

Clicking on the box opened the larger image inside an email. At the top left (not shown here) the user is given three options: Save to Inbox, Forward and Dismiss.

Gmail users then have an option to save these ads in their Inbox – in case the ad has a shopping coupon that you would like to use later – or they can forward the ads to a friend (won’t that be annoying?). If you dismiss the ad, it would disappear from your inbox forever. Interesting!