Tuesday, February 7, 2006

Many of us use the Internet in various ways to communicate: e-mail, of course; chat (I use AOL Instant Messenger, and sometimes Skype's chat feature); voice-over-IP calling (I use Skype). But I've always found the mix of separate services to be somewhat less than convenient.

Today, Google started adding chat into its Gmail e-mail service. Chris Sherman over at Search Day covers the news. Not all Gmail users will have it today, but everyone should have it within a few weeks.

What this does, of course, is integrate e-mail and chat into a single user interface. It will show you which of your e-mail correspondents has Google Talk enabled, and if they're available to chat (or not) right now. A nice feature is that it stores chats you do within Gmail, so they're searchable just like your e-mail.

Gmail previously added an RSS reader into the interface ("WebClips"), so I'm now finding less of a need to go to other applications to get news; it's right there in my e-mail application, which is where I spend most of my online time. To have chat be part of that, too, is super convenient, at least to my way of working.

Where this likely is going is that Gmail will add even more functionality over time. It's not hard to imagine the addition of Skype-like VoIP calls integrated into the e-mail experience. I can't wait for the day that when I need to answer an e-mail, my choices will be right there in one place: send a text reply, open a chat with the person, or make a voice call. Cool.
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