Watch out Skype (and Meebo and TokBox), Google is adding voice and video chat to Gmail today, all in one fell swoop. When you are having an instant message conversation with someone over Gtalk, a video and voice option will appear (after you download this plugin).
From the Google Blog:
Just click on the new “Video & more” menu in a Gmail chat window and select “Start video chat” or “Start voice chat.” You can switch to a full screen view or pop out the chat window and change the size and positioning as you wish. Of course, not everyone has a webcam, but even if you don’t, you can still have voice conversations alongside your email and regular chat
Bringing video chat into the Gmail page, just as it does with regular IM, is in step with Google’s efforts to connect its disparate services together in a more seamless fashion. It is also a better experience. If you use Gmail as your primary email, you always have it open. That means you don’t have to open up a separate application just to conduct an impromptu text, voice, or video chat (as you do with other IM clients). These are all just different modes of communication, available to you as appropriate. Life just got a lot harder for startups pushing point solutions around video chat.
The new feature was developed out of Google’s engineering group in Sweden, where it acquired e-meeting startup Marratech in April, 2007. Serge Lachapelle, the Swedish Google product manager in the video below, used to be the VP of product management at Marratech.
So maybe in another 18 months we’ll see the Marratech’s cool whiteboarding feature incorporated into Gmail as well (see the old Marratech product shot below):
They should add a twitter-like layer to Gmail. This will begin the mainstream adoption of twitter-like messaging, something that hasn’t yet happened yet. Only someone with a large enough captive audience can succeed here. Facebook is trying.
Yes … a Gmail inbox tab and Twitter tab you click back and forth would be great!
game over big google was took back over the playground
That is really cool, I wonder when we will see an Android client for this?
I imagine you wont see one until there is an Android phone with a camera facing the same direction as the screen.
Brilliant comment, good sir!
*laugh*
lmao ;D
ROFL !
nice.
Nice!!
Should be useful. Real useful.
Best,
Mike
http://www.wannadevelop.com
just gmail could not be more bloated.
Dude! They really need to integrate this with GrandCentral! Then I would have no reason to even consider Yahoo!/MSN Chat (as I hate using them anyways).
I was waitng for someone to mention Grandcentral, just as I am waiting for google to update it!
I wonder how many startups are now dead as a result of this.
coughs TokBox
Makes me wonder even more about the SecondLife voice/text chat client, dubbed SLim.
http://blog.sec...-look-for-slim/
Linden Lab seems to still be casting about for a way to monetize their infrastructure and technology, but SLim just doesn’t seem to be the natural fit that something like the new Google offering his.
Very smooth. – XMPP i guess?
Wonders when the Google video phone for homes will be available?
)
Cheers
Chris
There is already a great Video Phone out on the Market…no need to wait around for Google!
Check it out……it works great!
http://tr.im/2llp
I agree that they need a Twitter connection as part of this. They should just buy Twitter. But the problem is that it’s hard to get excited about anything Google, since they don’t put much development into the older tools like Groups and Pages and Calendars and Documents which are not really very well integrated with each other.
-d
the 12-Step Buddhist
http://the12stepbuddhist.com
This is awesome. Sadly only for PC. I guess us Mac users will have to wait.
It works on Safari 3.0 on mac.
My girlfriend and I recently switched from Skype to Sightspeed because of the overall video quality of Sightspeed, it’ll be interesting to give this a shot.
We’re looking for the best video quality, when choosing a service.
If anybody has any suggestions I’d love to hear them.
I have tried out quite a few of these apps, my conclusion is that Apple iChat is by far the best one as far as video quality is concerned. It also allows for very smooth multi-user video conferences. (Unfortunately only runs on Macs.)
Yeah, we’re on Windows.
I love iChat too – but getting it to work across diverse networks, firewalls and routers is sometimes VERY challenging. Skype is far easier in terms of connections – it always seems to work. iChat – well, it depends upon where I’m at. I wish iChat were better in this department. I’d use it more often.
Actually, quite a few of my colleagues and I jettisoned iChat in favour of Skype. Partly that’s because setting up a stable connection became difficult when Leopard first came out, but also because of picture quality. We prefered the sharp-but-slightly-jerky appearance of Skype to the smooth-n-smeary look generated by iChat.
Check out my reply to Chris above from Nov. 11
even if MSN Messenger sucks big time, I would not switch to this Google thingy if it is not integrated into other google apps (even orkut) and enable me to communicate the way existing apps cant.
For all Open Source Conferencing Softwares….
http://www.gplp...main&did=58
That page has horrible usability. Starting with a pop-up on the home page!? (especially because it’s not an ad and contains essentially useless information)
While on a video chat with friends – if you’d like to watch a video (of any size or format) together in sync and DIRECTLY FROM YOUR HARD-DRIVE (or a USB device) without uploading it – http://www.SeeToo.Com
That is really cool, I wonder when we will see an iPhone client for this? or only at Android??
Thanks, Santiago @ http://www.cuoma.com
Nice features for collaboration, but in the same manner, the user can use Skype and Google Docs. And since the Gtalk users are not a majority, I don’t see this as a threat.
Me thinks this will be a BIG day for Gmail!
Two thumbs up!
I can’t even get to the download link because it reverts right back to the Google Home Page ?
Same here. I click the link to download the plugin, and I am immediately moved to the google home page.
MacBook Pro OSX 10.5 Firefox 3
More startups dead. Another master-stroke from Big G.
Interesting.. 2 weeks after logitech acquired sightspeed for $30M
http://blog.log...res-sightspeed/
I just got my logitech webcam, and the quality over skype was pretty good, although I couldn’t take advantage of the hq setting as you need dual core pc’s.
Anyone want to compare skype vs. google, vs. sightspeed?
I just want high quality.
And of course, we may expect this functionalities to be incorporated to Google talk native application, as well.
Video messaging is a nice upgrade. Sending personalized emails by video adds a special touch to emails.
Dammmm that’s awesome
actually working at work just got more difficult. thanks google!
Does it mean that Google now records my (video)calls too ? Can we tag them ? and search them ?
very cool..I wonder if this will help drive adoption of Gtalk, not many folks use it as their primary IM client.
Way cool feature… it be great if we could send a video / voice email…
wooo FINALLY. I’ve been waiting for this feature for such a long time.
Does anyone think that its still too much for Google to take on? or is it just me?
This will be a big blow to Skype, more useful.
Nat
http://www.workersinc.com
And yet still no file transfer…
File transfering… in e-mail application. You do the math.
Google: We kill startups because we don’t do P&L.
Anyway, this will get traction among the geeks and that’s about it probably. Gchat (or IM, in general) works so well, because you can have a variety of conversations while doing other things. Video chat requires a level of effort that doesn’t make it as useful (for me, and I imagine many others).
Erick – are you really looking for something with quality whiteboarding, multipoint video and voip, desktop sharing and more? Check out Nefsis (www.nefsis.com) which is currently in beta and nobody knows about it yet. It can do 20+ points of video at 30 frames per second and even 720 high definition in software. It is *not* another Flash thing, is the first true parallel processing app for video conferencing and it smokes Sightspeed or Marratech’s product.
http://www.nefsis.com
Why is it that we had better multi conference solutions 10 years ago than today?
I wonder how different the video conferencing market would be today if CU-SeeMe had gone open source instead of being swallowed up and abandoned so many years ago.
Let’s hope Google adds multi-conferencing soon.
Yeah..I think that this new service could be gaining for google business.
It makes my internet slower then I quit
Why don’t they integrate this with Orkut and also give every user a streaming channel on YouTube? Maybe then Seesmic and 12second etc will be down in one swell swoop.
Another sign of how close the Internet is soon gonna be owned by Google. This is an interesting development and could kill Skype!
Btw
Check out http://www.jobstaxi/com
New Jobs. FriendFeed. Playfish. Netflix. Connected Ventures. MeetUp. ReverbNation.
This is very interesting…They didn’t developed a new browser plugin but they use pure Flash within the browser.
The addon they created is a simple mini-Flash Media Server proxy server connecting in a P2P fashion to the other peer so they spared themselves a plethora of problems by NOT developing yet another browser plugin.
In theory, anyone who has a Google account could use this to create their own high performance video conferencing service (since it’s P2P). Combine it with OpenID+Jabber and you have a global video platform
Anyway, I’m curious how is this competing with Adobe’s Pacifica P2P platform and the P2P built-in support in Flash 10 which were quietly sneaked in (just search for “Flash 10 P2P”). I just hope the new Pacifica platform won’t be another FMS fiasco when one is charging $45k for a license and wakes up after a couple of years cutting the price by 90%.
We’re living interesting times. Who gives a damn about the side effects of the crisis when our peaking survival instincts will lead to competition and innovation?
Amazing! This is truly in it’s way to becoming a complete communication platform.. and it used to be “just email”.
I spread the word in spanish: http://www.lawe...eo-y-audio.html
Very cool feature, should be a nice way to catch up with the ichat on the Mac.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
Hmnm no linux version yet …That is very sad
This is great, this is Web 2.0 for masses
A good move by Google. Gmail seems to be where all add-on features are happening. What’s next? Integration of Google Finance flex charts there too?
Skype’s over-rated and hasn’t integrated in as well as expected.
This is great.
When can be used in Gtalk?
This RULES… I always keep my Gmail open… this is what was missing… This, AND the sms feature that is coming next week…
http://the-anti...ey.blogspot.com
The Marratech product description looks like a WebEx rip off.
A Google – Microsoft – Cisco fight for unified communications? I’m in. Sign me up for some popcorn.
There are quite a few of us who would indeed like to compare Google Chat with Skype but unfortunately it does not work. Many people are just getting a black screen or green bars covering everything. No response though from Google about this. Rather a mistake to trumpet something around the world and in all the media when the product is so seriously flawed.
I tried this product and it is a pretty cool product compared to Skype, especially the sharing pieces (my perspective so don’t shoot me LOL). However, I did notice the screen sharing feature is a little clumsy but workable overall. After more research I found a small product called epop. They use some type of multiple video, really nice sharing features especially for all my Vista PCs with AREO enabled. I can’t believe I actually found a sharing feature that can do it right! That WAS so important for us. This is a little overkill but I hear they even do HD video using a regular HD camcorder. LOL Good luck.