Google’s added voice as well as video to its popular chat program, Gchat. Looks like popular Yahoo! Messenger and Microsoft’s Live Messenger have more to fear from the rival IM.

According to the official release, 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.” Translated into everyone-speak, Google is well on its way on taking over the Netiverse.

If you have a webcam, get in on the fun by going to “Options” then choose “Add voice/video chat”. You can’t start immediately – there’s a 2MB plugin to install first. Once that’s done you’ll re-open Gmail and notice that “Options” has become “Video & more”.

The capabilities won’t be seen on all accounts as yet. It’s steadily being rolled out globally over the next day or so. Google Apps customers will also get the service as well. Systems requirements? No news on how it works on Linux but Windows users using XP or Vista or Mac users on Mac OS X 10.4 or later have nothing to worry about. Browser compatibility is confirmed on Firefox 2.0+, Internet Explorer 7.0, Safari 3.0 and of course Google Chrome.

With Gmail becoming the webmail of choice for more users everywhere, adding video and voice is definitely an interesting means of converting more people to Gtalk. So long as your contact has Gmail, you can IM without messy installs and all from the comfort of your browser.

Still, if you’ve got multiple IM accounts and don’t want the headache of having several IM programs on at once, try Digsby which also supports video and voice while integrating MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk and even Twitter into one program. Video chat works well so far for MSN and Yahoo accounts. But with Gtalk having all the features you could ask for, expect more people to start choosing just one account – Google’s.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 4:10 am under Google, Online video.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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