Los Angeles — Want to use Google Chat beyond Gmail? Count your luck on Google’s latest sweetening of its user-customizable iGoogle site that now delivers the power to conduct Gmail chats from within iGoogle. The new feature means users will be able to chat with their friends and associates on the iGoogle homepage without having to flip through multiple windows, the company said Tuesday.
The feature is not a gadget as similar as most of your iGoogle features. The chat functionality comes in the form of a sidebar and is located below the left-hand navigation menu.
“Similar to the chat feature on Gmail, people will be able to send instant messages to their colleagues, friends and family right from their iGoogle page,” Rhett Robinson, a Google Talk engineer, wrote in a blog post.
Chat can be embedded as another widget to the iGoogle homepage through the settings menu. All settings for Gmail chat will be applicable to the iGoogle version.
Google says that the iGoogle version of chat, however, will also enable you to chat with friends who do not have a Gmail address. “Any email address will do,” Robinson wrote. “All you have to do is invite them as a chat buddy, and if they accept your invitation and sign up for iGoogle with their personal email account, their name becomes just a click away right on your page.”
The chat feature also can be blocked from being viewed if you are the type who easily gets distracted, and users can sign out of chat without signing out of iGoogle if they prefer not to be bothered.
Apparently Google had been experimenting with this innovative feature internally and among a small set of users. Today, chatting from within iGoogle is being offered to a much larger group of users.
Of course, the service is under trial and if you do not instantly see it on your iGoogle homepage, opt in by heading to www.google.com/ig/v2invite. It is only available in English for U.S. users at the moment, but Google plans to expand on that in the future.
Google’s Robinson writes, “It is important to note that this feature may have some kinks, so we ask for your patience as we work through them. Here at Google, it is common practice for us to involve our users as early as possible so we can make sure we get it right.
Nevertheless, users who do encounter any bugs can report them here, and Google is always open to additional feedback as well.