Google’s Gmail is getting more and more interesting features. First, I heard via Mashable that Gmail Labs has added support for canned responses. The Official Gmail Blog writes:

As I mentioned in the subject of this post, Canned Responses is only available if you actually turn on the feature in Gmail Labs. Head on over to Settings on the top right hand corner of your Gmail account, click on the Labs tab, and then Enable Canned Responses. Then, whenever you reply to a message, you’ll see your Canned Responses; you can add as many as you want.

Given that I use Lifehacker’s Texter to help me with canned responses, it’s nice to know that Gmail cares and I could do without Texter — which is helpful when I’m composing a message on a computer that doesn’t have Texter installed. This is a much welcome change.

But that’s not all Gmail has whipped up for us this week. A day later, we found out that Gmail now supports humor and emoticons, as seen below:

The Official Gmail Blog explains more. To be frank, I’m surprised it took this long. Still, it’s nice that they finally included emoticons. Now how about converting my 🙂 to an actual smiley face?

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.