Gmail launches free voice and video chat

Make video calls to your friends and family and cakap-cakap all you want, all for free, right alongside your email

KUALA LUMPUR, November 12, 2008 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today launched Gmail voice and video chat, making it simple for Malaysians and people around the world to chat in high-quality video within Gmail - all for free.

All you need is a webcam and a small web browser plugin, and you can start video chatting with your friends, family, and coworkers on Gmail and Google Apps. Gmail voice and video chat lets you start a video chat without switching to another application or signing up for another account. And if you don't have a webcam, you can simply chat by voice. We've made it easy enough that your family, friends -- or your employees -- will actually use it. Gmail is the first leading webmail service to include video chat. The launch comes as video communication grows in popularity; many of the latest lines of laptops, for example, come with built-in webcams. Businesses stretched across continents and timezones want more face-to-face collaboration among their employees, but in this economic climate, may be looking for ways to cut travel and IT expenses. Having a meeting with a colleague over video allows communications to continue in person without the expense of travelling there. Whether it's a coworker demoing a new product, or a first-time grandmother saying hello to her new grandson, sometimes there's no substitute for speaking to and seeing someone. Google is offering browser-based voice and video chat as a natural extension to webmail and instant messaging, allowing people to choose how they want to communicate at each moment -- by email, instant message, voice, or video.

To get started, open a Gmail chat window, click on the "Options" menu at the bottom, and choose "Add voice/video chat," which will walk you through a one-time installation of a free plugin (a quick 2 MB download). When you re-open Gmail you'll notice your "Options" link in your chat window has changed to "Video & more". Open this menu and click "Start video chat" to see and hear your partner in high-quality video. You can pop out the video and change its size and position, or switch to full screen.

Gmail voice and video chat is being rolled out globally over the next day or so in all 50 languages supported by Gmail, from English to Oriya to Telugu, on PCs and on Macs. Google Apps customers get this service as well, at no extra charge, and can video chat with any other Gmail or Apps users.

Gmail has always been about more than just email -- it's increasingly a communications hub, always pushing the limits of browser-based applications. Video chat is the latest in a weekly stream of Gmail features that includes, Gmail for mobile 2.0 and animated emoticons.

To use voice and video chat, your PC must have Windows XP or a more recent version, or an Intel-Based Mac with Mac OS X v10.4 or later. It works in all browsers that support the latest version of Gmail (Google Chrome, Firefox 2.0+, Internet Explorer 7.0, and Safari 3.0).