December 20th, 2010 | by A Googler | published in Google Talk
(Cross posted from the Gmail blog)
When we launched calling in Gmail back in August, we wanted it to be easy and affordable, so we made calls to the U.S. and Canada free for the rest of 2010. In the spirit of holiday giving and to help people keep in touch in the new year, we’re extending free calling for all of 2011.
In case you haven’t tried it yet, dialing a phone number works just like a regular phone. Look for “Call phone” at the top of your Gmail chat list and dial a number or enter a contact’s name.
To learn more, visit gmail.com/call. Calling in Gmail is currently only available to U.S. based Gmail users.
Happy New Year and happy calling!
Posted by Robin Schriebman, Software Engineer
December 14th, 2010 | by A Googler | published in Google Talk
When I first saw a green dot by my dad’s name in the chat box, I was excited to finally be able to chat with him rather than pick up the phone or send an email. I messaged him a few times, but never got a response. It wasn’t until I went home for the holidays and asked him why he never answered that I found out that he always saw my messages, but really had no idea how to go about sending or responding to chat messages them.
With a bit of tutoring and practice, my dad has become quite the master chatter, messaging me at all hours of the day, telling me to go to bed at night and asking me if I’ve gotten enough sleep in the morning.
We at Google love using technology in our daily lives and want to share that with our loved ones so we can connect whether we’re right next door or hundred of miles apart. TeachParentsTech.org is a site we’ve created to send basic how-to videos to our families. Here’s a video I created on how to use chat:
For more videos or to send videos to your loved ones, visit TeachParentsTech.org. Have a safe and happy holidays!
Posted By Allen Huang, Associate Product Manager
December 14th, 2010 | by Michael Bolognino | published in Google Talk
When I first saw a green dot by my dad’s name in the chat box, I was excited to finally be able to chat with him rather than pick up the phone or send an email. I messaged him a few times, but never got a response. It wasn’t until I went home for t…
December 8th, 2010 | by A Googler | published in Google Talk
Growing up, December was always a favorite month of mine. School would let out for two weeks, snowflakes would start falling and I’d write my letter to Santa to remind him that I’d been especially good that year (and ask if he’d mind bringing me a few Ninja Turtles). He never answered those letters—he’s a busy guy, after all—but what if he could pick up the phone and call me instead? What if Santa had Google Voice and could easily call all the kids on his list?
Well, this year he can—with your help. If you know a kid (of any age) who’d like to hear from Santa, create and send a personalized phone call from the jolly man in the red suit himself at sendacallfromsanta.com.
There are hundreds of options to choose from, so you can send unique, customized phone calls to anyone you know, from your nieces and nephews to old college friends, over the phone (to U.S. numbers only) or via email, Facebook or Twitter.
If you or your kids have a special request or message for Santa, you can leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Although he’s too busy to return messages himself, you can always create one on his behalf at the Send a Call From Santa site.
Ready to spread some holiday cheer? Listen to a sample message, and visit sendacallfromsanta.com to send a message of your own.
And don’t forget—if you want to keep up with Santa as he travels around the globe delivering presents on Christmas Eve, you can track his journey on Google Maps, on Google Earth with the plug-in and on your mobile phone, too.
Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
Santa’s calling (from his Google Voice number)
December 8th, 2010 | by Michael Bolognino | published in Google Talk
Growing up, December was always a favorite month of mine. School would let out for two weeks, snowflakes would start falling and I’d write my letter to Santa to remind him that I’d been especially good that year (and ask if he’d mind bringing me …
December 3rd, 2010 | by A Googler | published in Google Talk
(Cross-posted from the Google Voice blog)
Keeping in touch with family during the holiday season can be challenging for anyone, but it’s especially difficult for military families with loved ones serving around the country or overseas.
Gmail’s built in video chat and free calls to the U.S. and Canada can help keep friends and family in contact regardless of how far apart they may be. To make staying in touch this holiday season even easier for military families, we’re offering a $10 calling credit to help them reach their loved ones serving abroad.
These international call credits can be used to make calls with Google Voice or from right inside Gmail, and will provide families with roughly 30 minutes of call time to Afghanistan, 60 minutes to Iraq, or hundreds of minutes to many countries in Europe and around the world.
To make this possible, we’ve partnered with Blue Star Families and Sesame Street, two organizations dedicated to supporting service members and their families.
Photo by Sesame Workshop, 2010
To be eligible for $10 calling credits, military family members must:
- Be a member of either Blue Star Families or Sesame Street Family Connections — registration is free for all military families
- Provide their Gmail address
- Enable calling in Gmail and accept the terms of service OR have an existing Google Voice account
- Complete this registration form by December 22, 2010
We recognize the sacrifices military family members make when loved ones serve abroad, and we’re proud to help make it a little bit easier for families to stay connected over the holidays.
At this time, Google Voice and calling in Gmail are available in the U.S. only.
Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
September 17th, 2010 | by A Googler | published in Google Talk
(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)If you use video chat in Gmail, you might be interested in a new Labs feature we just rolled out that allows you to preview new video chat features before they’re turned on for everyone. Visit the Gmail Labs tab under …
August 25th, 2010 | by Jason | published in Google Talk
(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)
Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer’s microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?”
Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail.
Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. We worked hard to make these rates really cheap (see comparison table) with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan—and many more countries—for as little as $0.02 per minute.
Dialing a phone number works just like a normal phone. Just click “Call phone” at the top of your chat list and dial a number or enter a contact’s name.
We’ve been testing this feature internally and have found it to be useful in a lot of situations, ranging from making a quick call to a restaurant to placing a call when you’re in an area with bad reception.
If you have a Google Voice phone number, calls made from Gmail will display this number as the outbound caller ID. And if you decide to, you can receive calls made to this number right inside Gmail (see instructions).
We’re rolling out this feature to U.S. based Gmail users over the next few days, so you’ll be ready to get started once “Call Phones” shows up in your chat list (you will need to install the voice and video plug-in if you haven’t already). If you’re using Google Apps for your school or business, then you won’t see it quite yet. We’re working on making this available more broadly – so stay tuned!
For more information, visit gmail.com/call.
Posted by Robin Schriebman, Software Engineer
August 25th, 2010 | by Jason | published in Google Talk
(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer’s microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at…
August 19th, 2010 | by Jason | published in Google Talk
(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)
If you’ve been wanting to use voice and video chat on Linux (our top video chat request), then we have good news for you: it’s now available! Visit gmail.com/videochat to download the plugin and get started. Voice and video chat for Linux supports Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions, and RPM support will be coming soon.
Posted by Tristan Schmelcher, Software Engineer
July 19th, 2010 | by Jason | published in Google Talk
(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)
Two weeks ago we asked you to submit photos of you video chatting with your grandma. Thank you for all your submissions! As promised, we’d like to highlight a few photos that particularly touched us.
Emmanuel from Israel submitted this photo and wrote “My grandmother lives in Nice, France and could not come to our wedding in Israel, this is as close as we got to having her with us.”
Charlie from New York City sent in these great photos of his daughter Maayan’s first video chat with her grandparents in Portland.
And Niranjan from Bangalore submitted this photo of him video chatting with his grandmother in Mumbai while away at college.
Thanks again for your submissions– and happy video chatting!
Posted by Cody Bratt, Google Chat team
July 1st, 2010 | by Jason | published in Google Talk
(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)
Often when I tell people that I work on Google video chat, I hear stories about how they’ve used it to give a video tour of a new home to friends, introduce a baby to relatives, keep in touch with traveling loved ones… the list goes on. This got me thinking about how convenient— and sometimes even magical — the experience of video chatting is.
So when I saw that my grandma, who loves keeping in touch with family more than anyone, wasn’t set up to use video chat, I decided to help her get started. While doing so, it occurred to me how many people there must be out there in similar situations. If only there were a simple way that any grandmother could use to get started on her own…
Introducing the Grandmother’s Guide to Video Chat:
This video, along with a printable guide, can be accessed at google.com/chat/grandma. Feel free to share this link with your grandma—or grandpa—or, well, anyone who wants to video chat to help get them up and running.
And after your grandma is all set up, take a screenshot of you video chatting with her and email it to to share it with us. The first 100 people to do so will get a t-shirt, printable guide and VHS of the video (because if your grandma’s like mine, she’s still a cassette kind of girl).
In a few weeks, we’ll feature the best photos submitted on the Gmail blog.
Posted by Jason Toff, Grandson of Evelyn & Ida
April 22nd, 2010 | by Jason | published in Google Talk
If you’re like most people, you probably have different groups of friends. Now, with Google Chat in iGoogle, you can connect these friends by suggesting people they might already know, or who share their interests.In addition, Google Chat will automa…
April 22nd, 2010 | by Jason | published in Google Talk
If you’re like most people, you probably have different groups of friends. Now, with Google Chat in iGoogle, you can connect these friends by suggesting people they might already know, or who share their interests.
In addition, Google Chat will automatically suggest contacts we think you’ll be interested in, based on the people you email with the most (similar to what is currently done in Gmail). Suggestions will typically appear upon sign in (if available).
If you don’t want to receive contact suggestions, you can turn them off by clicking
Options, then clicking
Chat Settings, and clearing the
Display contact suggestion banners checkbox.
Posted by David Bennett, software engineer
March 29th, 2010 | by Jason Toff | published in Google Talk
Have you ever wanted to quickly send a file to a friend whom you’re chatting with online? Starting today, you can share photos, documents, and other files while chatting in iGoogle and orkut. To give it a try, just click Send a file……
