Mountain View, California — Gmail is one of the most popular email services in the world and in an attempt to capture the VoiP arena Google has often been adding services to ameliorate it, and recently the search engine heavy weigh unveiled the video chat, voice chat, and group chat features much more prominent and get more people to use them.
Now whatever brand of microphones and webcams the average Gmail user has attached to his or her computer may soon start getting a lot more tinkling out of it. Gmail has offered voice, video and group chat for quite a while. To reap the benefit out of it, you have to know where to look, and the video chat feature requires users to install a plug-in first.
“Video chat, voice chat, and group chat have all been available for some time within Gmail, but they have been mysteriously tucked away. Getting them up and running required jiggling with a little menu at the bottom of each chat window. Starting today, all of these features will be just a single click away,” Josh Teague, user experience designer at Google, wrote.
And because it is not the most intuitive or straight-forward tool to use, which is why Google has refreshed it a little bit: “One of the most profound benefits to unearthing these chat options is that it is easier for people to get started who do not yet have the voice and video chat plugin,” he explained.
The old Gmail chat window versus the new one
Now, instead of fiddling with the menus to activate video, voice, or group chats, Google has added three little icons that make it a cinch. The three buttons are, from left to right, video chat, voice chat and group chat. Simply press the graphic of the one you want to do, and bingo, you are video chatting.
This revamped release could turn out to be a good way for Google to make up ground in the “social” sphere, considering that it will get people to spend more time using Gmail and probably takes aim at Facebook Chat.
Encouraging people to use the chat feature was simple enough. At one point, after a quick exchange of emails, one realizes that maybe it would be easier to just use the integrated chat than to send short emails back and forth. And with the Chat contacts list prominently displayed, it was simple to get started.
But what do you do if your chat buddy does not have the video and voice plugin installed? Google now has yet another icon that, when clicked, will invite your buddy to install the plug-in. Google already did something similar with iGoogle and Orkut.
Google says that with more advanced options users will still be able to “Go off the record,” “Block People,” and “Send SMS” are then available via the easy-to-see “Actions” menu.