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Marziah Karch
Marziah's Google Blog

By Marziah Karch, About.com Guide to Google

Gmail Gets Video Chat

Wednesday November 12, 2008
Google Talk is pretty boring. It's an instant messaging service, but there are a ton of others out there. Gmail lets you use it to message other users as you check your mail, but I can do the same thing with my Facebook account. Voice chat was only available for PC users, and it wasn't as powerful as cross-platform Skype.

Mac and PC users will both get to enjoy video chats from within Gmail within the next couple of days. You'll have to download a client the first time you use it, but after that you can video chat with your webcam or just voice chat with a microphone. I can't wait to try it out.

Comments
July 20, 2009 at 3:09 am
(1) Bruce July20th 2009 says:

Dear Marziah
I don’t know when you wrote his blog but unless you wrote it ionly a couple of days ago – which I doubt your information about Video Chat being available in Gmail Chat is incorrect! I have loaded the “required” plug in “Google Talk Plug in 1.0.10.0″ and no dice, even using Gmail Chat nor Google Talk! Please let me know if I haven’t got it right! I see many others are asking this same question so what is going on?
Have a nice day and make my day by replying to this!
Bruce

July 28, 2009 at 10:52 pm
(2) Marziah Karch says:

Wow, Bruce. I wrote this a while ago, but I’ve used the video chat in Gmail without any problems. I double checked, and it appears to be working fine for me. Are you using a built in video camera or a peripheral? Is the camera turned on and working ok with other software? What Web browser are you using?

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