Google Talk And Gmail Become Buddies
Google is marrying Google Talk and Gmail together, and will let you chat from within your Gmail account. You will be able to talk with any Google Talk users, or with users of any service that works with Google Talk, from within the Gmail interface. As this screenshot shows, a mini IM windows will appear in the Gmail interface on the lower right-hand side, letting you hold multiple conversations without ever leaving your email:
You can see a Quick Contacts list on the left sidebar, letting you see the status of your most popular contacts and click to talk to them if they are online. The contacts list is ordered automatically by how often you talk to people, but you can select any contact to automatically appear there, up to 40.
If you don’t like the placement of the chat window, it pops out, and becomes larger and more configurable.
Gmail will index your chats within Gmail, but can right now start indexing chats done from Google Talk. Just go to your settings page, click the Chat tab and turn it on. Chats appear immediately in a new Chat folder in Gmail. You will be able to click a “standard without chat” button at the bottom of Gmail to sign out of Chat and keep using Gmail.
As Wade points out in the comments, conversations saved in the Chat folder can be moved out and into the inbox, but can’t be moved back. Google probably wants to force you to start archiving them as thought they were real emails.
Thanks to Chat, you can now use Google’s IM anywhere you can get Gmail to work, in IE6+ and Firefox 1.0+. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google tries to integrate this into other versions of Gmail, like a mobile version. For now, Chat won’t work in secure mode (https://), but only in http://.
One cool feature: If you’re chatting with someone, and you don’t want the conversation logged, you can click an option in Gmail or in Google Talk to go “off the record”, which, for that chat, disables logging both in your system and on the other person’s. Smart!
The big difference between chatting in Gmail or in Google Talk: voice chat. You don’t get that in Gmail.
There are no ads while chatting, but chat logs follow the same rules as regular Gmail messages. Firefox’s AdBlock may need to be disabled to get Chat to work (hmm…).
AdBlock often interferes with Gmail’s chat features, causing Firefox to crash. Our engineers are working hard to fix the problem, but in the meantime, disable AdBlock for testing purposes, and clear your browser’s cache. Then, log back in to Gmail.
If disabling AdBlock resolves the problem, but you’d still like to use it in conjunction with Gmail, you may want to contact AdBlock’s support team for help customizing your settings so you can still access your Gmail account after re-enabling the extension.
Google says Chat will be activated in Gmail as of an hour ago, but will take several weeks to reach all accounts. Chat logging should be available to all, however. I don’t have Chat, but if you do, proudly brag about it in the comments, and give your thoughts!
I think its great of Google to bring this feature, and tying it in with the popular Gmail will help spur adoption of Talk. Assuming Chat in Gmail works as advertised, this might be the thing to get me to use Gmail more since, unlike most people, I use Talk a lot and Gmail a little.
UPDATE: Welcome Slashdotters! Maybe you can help answer my question about which Java Virtual Machine doesn’t suck (if any).
[…] Related: Google Talk And Gmail Become Buddies Gmail has finally learned to chat without an IM […]
Pingback by GMail + GTalk = GMail Chat at 二三街角 | February 7, 2006
Finally a google announcement I can be excited about!
Comment by FofR | February 7, 2006
If you log out of gmail and in again, chances are you’ll see the Chat area (has word for 5 accounts for 4 different users).
It works like a treat (including off the record, on the record and starting of conversations).
Also, I’ve found 2 bugs with it…
A conversation can be moved to a user’s inbox (via the button), but can not be moved back out again.
A conversation can be ’stared’ with the mouse, but can not be ’stared’ with the drop down.
–Wade M
Comment by Wade M | February 7, 2006
I just noticed in the screenshot: “Spam (3300)”
Logging out and logging in enabled the “chat” label so I am assuming I can activate the chat elsewhere somehow.
Comment by FofR | February 7, 2006
Haven’t yet been able to chat in Gmail but nice way to store my Talk conversations.
“A conversation can be moved to a user’s inbox (via the button), but can not be moved back out again.”
- I had the same problem.
Comment by Jack | February 7, 2006
(I’ve reported both bugs to Gmail FYI….)
–WadeM
Comment by Wade M | February 7, 2006
This is cool, but, my account still doesn’t have the webclips feature yet and that’s been around for months. It’s brilliant to see all these new features but I don’t have any of them! Are google doing a very very slow roll out of webclips/rss stuff?
Comment by Ian | February 7, 2006
I wonder what effect this will have on Outlook and Yahoo mail. I predict it moves MSN to a more open IM network. You can’t very well add IM to email and then say you can only talk to other MSN emails…
Comment by Nicholas | February 7, 2006
[…] Most likely this is a feature that went live together with the integrated chat in GMail Nathan blogged about. “You will be able to talk with any Google Talk users, or with users of any service that works with Google Talk, from within the Gmail interface. As this screenshot shows, a mini IM windows will appear in the Gmail interface on the lower right-hand side, letting you hold multiple conversations without ever leaving your email.” […]
Pingback by Coolz0r - Marketing Thoughts » Google Talk Chat History | February 7, 2006
AdBlock problem. Can anyone shed more lite on the problem? Would white-listing *.google.com help?
Comment by Ihar `Philips` Filipau | February 7, 2006
[…] Most likely this is a feature that went live together with the integrated chat in GMail Nathan blogged about. “You will be able to talk with any Google Talk users, or with users of any service that works with Google Talk, from within the Gmail interface. As this screenshot shows, a mini IM windows will appear in the Gmail interface on the lower right-hand side, letting you hold multiple conversations without ever leaving your email.” […]
Pingback by » Google Talk Chat History » InsideGoogle » part of the Blog News Channel | February 7, 2006
nine..bliksome. Waar is die chat? Unbelievable that I don’t have any of these new features yet either…do you think that heavier users of gmail are getting chat first? I only use 5% of my inbox at present (138MB) but that’s mostly because I try to keep the crap out - pointless having the ability to search your mail when all you have is crap!
Ja wat swaar!
Comment by Schultz | February 7, 2006
Finally some great news! The new logo looks quite good, looks more modern =)
And chatting while checking your email is just plain awesome. Very useful when you are on a public computer. I’m really looking forward to more great features like this one!
Comment by Laurent Van Winckel | February 7, 2006
I still only have the log-saving feature, and not the actual ability to chat. One interesting thing about the logs is that you don’t need to use the GTalk client; chats through the GTalk network using only the Gaim client are logged.
Comment by Randall | February 7, 2006
GMail takes long enough to load already… Argh.
Comment by Dave | February 7, 2006
like others here, my account doesn’t appear to have any of the new features… i don’t have the delete button, i don’t have webclips, and even though i logged out and back in again, i don’t have the chat feature either.
what’s going on here?
Comment by jake | February 7, 2006
figured it out– none of this new stuff (delete button, webclips, chat, etc.) appears unless you have your language set to English (US) in Gmail preferences. sadly, it looks like us English (UK) folks are being left behind!
Comment by jake | February 7, 2006
I find the off-the-record thing to be a little silly… google’s network is xmpp-compliant, which means I can connect to it with any jabber client, any of which may perform its own logging. Sure, it won’t show up in google’s chat logs but I’ll still have it.
Best advice: if you need it off the record–whisper it in a swimming pool! no paper trail, no e-trail, and no nasty little hidden wires…
Comment by Keith | February 7, 2006
Gmail and Google Talk … a turning point?
I’ve had a GMail addy for a long time. I’ve started using it more and more now to help reduce my spam load (you’ll notice …
Trackback by A View from the Isle | February 8, 2006
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Pingback by Commonplace Book » Blog Archive » links for 2006-02-08 | February 8, 2006
I have been using GMAIL since the very beginning it started service. But I did not get the chat in those older accounts. Instead I got CHAT in a much newer account. I think GMAIL is providing service recursively.
Comment by Hunt | February 10, 2006
I have a problem with google talk ,,, well I am using google talk using the google talk-beta and also using the newly introduced Gmail chat feature.. However today I have encountered a new problem. I can see my friends online only on Gmail account but not on the Gtalk .. any idea why this anomaly???? .. I have tried re-installing Gtalk but of no avail …
Comment by Ranjan | March 18, 2006