Students who logged into their Gmail accounts last week were in for a bit of a surprise after Google introduced free voice and video chats.
Now, users can download a small plugin for the Gmail chat service that gives them the capability to communicate via a microphone or webcam right inside their browsers. This is just one in a string of developments that are making Gmail increasingly capable of being a one-stop shop for users' communicative and organizational needs.
The brains at Google, for example, recently introduced experimental features via Google labs, that allow users to display their calendars and document lists right next to their inboxes. These additions came in the wake of the prescient Mail Goggles, which aim to prevent people from sending e-mails while drunk.
Like Mail Goggles, voice and video chats seem especially relevant to college students, who use the Internet to communicate with faraway family, as well as with friends at other colleges or abroad. Though the new chatting features are only a week old, some Tufts students already view them as an alternative to -- or possible replacement for -- Skype.
"Like most study-abroad students, I am an ardent fan of Skype," junior Dan Casey, who is studying abroad in Kyoto, Japan, said in an e-mail.
Still, he is intrigued by Gmail's new technology. "It seemed like an unexpected yet overdue feature," he said.
Although he has encountered technical difficulties with the program, Casey believes that his current e-mail habits will lead him to make use of it.
"I check my e-mail manically enough that it makes more sense to use something that's already integrated into the same program as opposed to taking up additional computing power with something like Skype," he said.
Senior Adam White said that the design of Gmail's voice and video chat makes more sense than Skype's.
"Technically, I think Gmail integrates better [than Skype], as I sometimes lose track of talking and typing windows in Skype," he said.
Because it ties video chatting, which for many people is a rare occurrence, to communication technology as common as e-mail, White believes that Gmail's initiative will see success.
He added that Gmail's service may soon overtake Skype as the video chatting service of choice.
"I don't think Google offers all of the same functionality [as Skype does] yet, but the expanded and more consistent user base gives it much more potential," he said.
What's next for Gmail?
"Integrative text messaging," White said, explaining that a few weeks ago, Gmail introduced a Google labs experimental feature that would allow people to use Gchat to communicate with cell phones via SMS messaging, but took it down to make further improvements.
