The Jeff Pulver Blog: The Presence of Gmail:

« F2C: Freedom to Connect 2006 | Main | Ian Pulver Leaves NHL Players' Association »

February 18, 2006

The Presence of Gmail:

Have you used your Gmail account recently?

This morning on the Gmail home page I was greeted with the message:

---

“New! Gmail chat is here

Chat with your friends from right inside Gmail. There's no need to load a separate program or look up new addresses. It's just one click to chat with the people you already email, as well as anyone on the Google Talk network. And now you can even save and search for chats in your Gmail account”

---

The next time you open Gmail, take a look under the Contacts section and the people who are in your address book with a Gmail account will appear in the “Quick Contacts” with green, orange and grey dots next to their name. Hover your cursor over their name and you will now have the option to either Chat or Gmail the person. Contacts that do not have gmail accounts can be invited to Chat.

Google has implemented both their Google Talk Presence and IM Chat Engines into Gmail and has figured out a way to get their entire Gmail customer base to take advantage of the Google Talk technology platform.

Back in August, 2005 when Google Talk was launched I downloaded the application and played with it. After a while I stopped using it and once I got tired of watching it load up everything I booted up my PC, I removed the application from my desktop. Nothing against Google Talk but for me the novelty quickly wore off and I was on to my next application of the day to try out.

So while it has now been quite some time since I used Google Talk as a separate dedicated application, a few minutes ago I “chatted” with my friends Zoltan Herzegh and Alec Saunders while I was checking my email.

Give Google credit for bringing the concept of Presence to the users of Gmail and implementing the ability for Gmail users to IM chat with each other. It is now just a matter of time before Gmail users will be also able to speak with each other.

While I always thought that Presence + Location was a powerful combination, it turns out that Presence + email plays a very interesting role as well.

I wonder how long it will take for a similar feature set to appear on Y!, MSN and AOL?

I am looking forward to the time when the Presence + email platforms of these portals are all interconnected and I no longer need to use a separate dedicated application to engage in on-line chats amongst my friends.

Tags: Google, Gmail, Jeff Pulver