Video Chat comes to Gmail: Skype, Watch out!

November 13, 2008

Gmail Video Chat, originally uploaded by nooccar.

Yesterday I received a message that Gmail now had video and audio chat. I immediately told everyone about it, and I was completely excited. The videos all say to just open a chat through Gmail and click on Video & More, but you know what? You gotta install a small add-on. After I googled this, I got it installed and away I went. Of course no one else I knew had installed this yet so when Joe Abbruscato rang me up (much like Skype does) I was ecstatic.

Joe and I spoke for a few minutes to get a feel for the new software. The resolution was really good, and as a regular user of Skype that was always a complaint I had there.

My students both at Basha & MCC both are pretty much required to have gmail addresses, so I can now do video directly through here. This rocks.

The only two problems I have right now are 1) the window doesn’t float so if I navigate away from the gmail tab I can’t see my video buddy (but I can still hear them! I am talking to my wife on Gmail video chat right now!) 2) um… I can’t think of a two right now, so something must be working!

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