Interview with Todd Jackson, Gmail Project Manager at Google

Todd Jackson (image: CrunchBase)

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to chat over the phone with Todd Jackson from Google for about half an hour. He’s a Gmail Project Manager for the company, and I’m a big Gmail user, both for personal and work mail. Go figure that we’d have a nice conversation about Gmail.

Much of our focus was on the Gmail Labs functionality, which is of particular interest to me since we’ve seen several new Labs features of late. Last month also saw many other service upgrades out of Google, so the discussion was rather timely. Aside from Gmail Labs, we also touched upon mobility with Gmail, potential visions of the future and what the central purpose of Gmail is.

So last month I thought it was “Google Month” and nobody told me. I wrote up a handful of Google and Gmail related posts in February because new services were rolling out on a near-daily basis. I asked Todd about that as I wondered what the big push was. Turns out it was simply good timing. Some features were already planned for a February rollout, while some items in the Labs simply percolated up at the same time. Speaking of Labs, I asked about the lifecycle of a Labs idea.

Todd says that complex items in the Labs might take a while, but it’s also not uncommon for a Labs feature to be born in a single day. A tweak might be an idea at lunchtime and be coded before the end of the day. That doesn’t mean you or I would see it that day. Even though Google wants to add new features fast in their “culture of innovation” as Todd put it, there are some testing practices employed. Todd said that some of the traditional testing methods like a UI review might not apply to a Labs feature, but Google always checks a Lab item against two criteria: security and performance tests are both taken seriously.

As far as the Labs lifecycle from idea to testing prior to implementation, here’s a rough walkthrough. Anyone, either within or external to Google, can submit a Labs suggestion. Ideas are pursued, coded and validated not to cause any security or performance issues. Todd says that the Googlers “eat their own dogfood” at that point, at which time the feature is available internally at Google. That gives the opportunity for over 20,000 folks to enable the option and use it for a week or so. Any issues can be addressed and if there aren’t any, the feature will appear in Labs for the vast external user base of Gmail. As a former Software QA Manager, I like the approach: it offers a safe test-bed but doesn’t bog down the innovation with “too much” process.

Labs itself appeals to smaller groups of early adopters, and Todd says that’s a good user base. “Early adopters are good predictors… and leading indicators” of what mainstream users will want in a year or two. Makes sense to me, but the overall Gmail user base is growing vast, which I thought was a generally implied goal of Google. Not so. Todd says that Google “goes for usage rather than users”: to me that means adding value and functionality within the product as opposed to trying to get a more watered-down product on every device. It’s a profound thought for any service provider when you think about it.

Labs features are often supported through a relevant Google Group, and it’s common for the Group to be monitored by the engineer who designed the Labs feature. It’s a great feedback tool and a nearly direct support line to the developer. The operations team also provides monitored support in the Group as needed. Since we were on the topic of support, I asked about what might be one of the biggest mental challenges for many Gmail users: folders vs labels. Todd agrees that users coming from the one-to-one folders mindset can struggle with the labels paradigm offered by Gmail. However, its one-to-many structure offers value in ways that folders can’t.

We briefly touched on Gmail on mobile devices when I asked about the mobile experience. In my mind, the Gmail client on the T-Mobile G1 (built on Google’s Android platform) offers the most feature-rich and robust Gmail experience. When I asked Todd about it, I wondered if we’d see that feature-set ever expand beyond Android handsets. Todd didn’t disagree with the experience observations but says that Google focuses on building for the web first. Where the experience is lacking, there are opportunities for a fuller-featured client like the J2ME version for mobiles and BlackBerry devices. We also talked about the Palm Pre, since we’re both looking forward to it. I asked Todd if Google worked with Palm on the Pre’s e-mail client, as it’s programmatically built on some of the same web standards, but Todd wasn’t aware of any direct partnership there.

From there we turned our discussion to Gmail’s video chat feature. I’ve looked at it in the past, but still rely on Skype for most of my video chatting. Todd raised a good point about the inclusion of video chat. Google wants Gmail to be the centralized conversation place, which is why they’ve gone beyond e-mail and added Google Talk and Video Chat integration. It makes sense. I personally hate to think about what “tools” I need to communicate: I simply want all of the useful ones in one central place, and Google wants that to be Gmail.

All in all, I had a great time chatting with Todd, who was kind enough to spend 30 minutes of his day with me. With my web-only challenges of last year and my recent dumping of all e-mail clients, it’s no wonder the half-hour flew by faster than an engineer could code a new Labs feature.