Gmail learns to talk

Gmail said:

What's new?

Gmail learned to Talk. Now Gmail accounts are automatically enabled with chat features. You don't have to do anything special, it just works. See when your friends are online and decide for yourself how you want to get in touch with them. Email and instant messaging don't have to be so different. And why should you always have to remember whether something important was said over email or IM? We've made it easy for you to save chats, so you can search for them, print them, even reply to one over email.

2. What's Talk?

Well, there's the Google Talk client, which you can download to make free voice calls through your computer. And there's the Google Talk network. That's the millions of people who use the Google Talk IM service, or a service that supports open server-to-server federation to chat with each other instantly. Gmail's now on this network, which means that there are lots more people you can chat with right from your Gmail account.

3. Why'd you add chat to Gmail?

Communications these days can be frustrating. You exchange a bunch of emails with someone when really, you'd rather just get an answer instantly. You use one program for your email, and another one (or two or three) for IM. You can't remember who said what to you where. And sometimes you can't even remember who wallaby385 in your buddy list is.

Gmail's chat features address a lot of these problems. You don't have to use another program or switch between email and IM--it's all on the same interface. The friends you're already emailing the most show up in your Quick Contacts as themselves, not the cryptic IM names they chose six years ago. And you can save your chats so you never have to lose something important just because someone told it to you over IM.

4. Why should I use it?

Because it's there, and it just works. Maybe you're not a fan of IM or you're wondering whether you really need another IM service. That's ok, this isn't another IM service. It's still Gmail. There's nothing to load up, nothing to download (although the Google Talk client does let you make free calls through your computer). Just sign in to Gmail as you've always done. Maybe you'll start chatting with friends right away. Maybe not. But when you go to write an email and see that friend online, you might just find it easier to send an IM instead. Or maybe when you're traveling and all you have is an internet connection, you'll want to chat with someone back home. Or maybe someone IMs you an important address and you manage to find it later in your saved chats using search. You just never know when Gmail will come in handy.

5. How do I use it?

When you're signed in to Gmail, you should always see a Quick Contacts box along the left of your screen. Clicking on a name in Quick Contacts will start a chat session or an email. The people you can chat with have colored balls next to their names—green means they're online, yellow means they're idle and red means they're busy.

When someone IMs you, a chat session will show up on the bottom right corner. You can chat with them right there, or pop-out the entire chat session to its own window.

You can decide right at the outset to save chats in your Gmail account, but this can also be turned on or off in "Settings." And when you're chatting, use "Options" to go "off the record."

6. What browsers does this work on?

These features currently work on Windows IE 6.0+ and Firefox 1.0+, and we'll be working to bring chat to more browsers in the future.

7. What's the difference between this and Google Talk?

Gmail's new chat features, while integrated with the Google Talk network, do not allow you to make or receive calls to your friends over your computer. You still need to download the Google Talk Windows client for that. This download also allows you to be online all the time without having Gmail or your browser open. We think it's worthwhile to use both products. They are free, after all.


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