Mountain View, California — Inspired by the holiday spirit, and just when the year 2010 was coming to end, Google has decided to play Santa by extending its current phone calling offer for Gmail users in the US, permitting them to call landlines and mobiles in Canada and the US for free throughout 2011.
Google Voice account holders in US and Canada now have every reason to rejoice, but calls outside these countries are still paid.
The offer was originally supposed to run for the remainder of 2010, but will now be good for another year. At the beginning of this month, Google awarded military families free $10 international call credits. The aim was to help soldiers deployed around the world keep in touch with their loved ones. Now, Google’s also set to make it easier for ordinary U.S. citizens to save money when chatting, as it has offered free calling in Gmail through the end of next year.
A post on the Official Gmail Blog mentioned this afternoon, “When we introduced calling in Gmail back in August, we wanted it to be easy and affordable, so we made calls to the U.S. and Canada free for the rest of 2010. Now, in the spirit of holiday giving and to help people keep in touch in the new year, we are extending free calling for all of 2011.”
Google Voice via Gmail functions as voice mail transcription, offers free local calls, allows free local SMS, low-priced International Calls and single number for various other numbers — mobile, home, office. Back in August, when Google made a form of Google Voice available via its Gmail service, offering users a new option to “chat” within the Gmail interface via free phone calls. It quickly recorded 1 million calls in the first 24 hours.
To reap advantage of this bounty, which has been available since late August, a Google Voice account is required. Making a call is as easy as clicking the “Call Phone” link in the Chat window on the left, and dialing in.
Back in September this year, Apple approved Google Voice App for iPhone, Google released the same for iPad and iPod touch as well. Still Google Voice continued to be available only to consumers in US and Canada.
That may be a generous offer. Letting folks ring an acquaintance up whenever they please is a bold move. So enjoy calling folks for free if you live in America and want to chat with another U.S. citizen, at least.
More information is available at gmail.com/call.