Google Mail – Voice and Video Chat
Written by Simon Barker on November 12, 2008 · Filed under Tech
Google have now added further features to it’s Google Mail web browser based service, it essentially combines the voice chat functionality from Google Talk as well as adding video chat into the mix.
I’ve been using Google Mail (GMail) for a few years now, one of the handy things that you could do was have a live text chat / instant message session with other Google Mail users that you were friends with from within the browser without the need for a separate instant messaging client.
Google have also offered a separate optional application called Google Talk that you could install and use to have a voice chat with your other Google Mail/Talk friends – this method of ‘calling’ your friends has always provided me with good service when I’ve used it and have spoken with people all over the world with it.
All you need to do is install the Google Mail Voice and Video Chat plug-in and next time you load up your Google Mail, you’re good to text chat, voice chat or video chat with your friends wherever they might be. No doubt it will run especially well on the Google Chrome Browser! 
- Download the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in, quit all open browser windows, and install the plug-in.
- Sign in to Gmail.
- In the Chat section of your Gmail, select the contact you want to call. If they have a camera icon next to their name, you can make a voice or video call to them; just click Video & more.
The only thing missing for me which would make it really rival Skype would be the option of conference calling, so you can connect and chat with more than just one person. Also, I like that Google are adding features to Google Mail, but as a big fan of their Google Talk application (I use it more than MSN), I wish that they would also development it some more with features such as this – there hasn’t been a Google Talk update for ages!
Why don’t you give it a try and see how it works for you? Is this something that you’ll be using a lot?
I’ve just tried it out – not bad! I prefer to integrate my Google Talk into an all-in-one IM client like Adium or Pidgin though so until there’s support for that I won’t be able to use it much.
It works fine on my macosx macbook pro but will
not work on my fiances computer running w/XP on her PC.
We had a great conversation with perfect reception and great success
with video/chat for 3 hrs + the first night, and the when she tried it
the next night it would only give her a chat window and when I would
prompt to go to video it would want her to download the plug in like
it was never downloaded. She tried with chrome and firefox both had
the same outcome. It was the best reception I have ever had
the first night from a video chat of any sort, but happy that skype
and messenger are stable in reception at least. Please fix this
Google!!!!! REALLY FRUSTRATING!!! Is there a special sequence to downloading it. Why was it so great the first night and then nothing
but chat for us the next??? Thank you for your response.