August 2010

Google Inc said users of Gmail will now be able to call telephones directly from their email, putting it in direct competition with Web calling service Skype and companies such as AT&T Inc.

While Google had already offered computer-to-computer voice and video chat services, starting on Wednesday it said it will allow calls to home phones and mobile phones directly from Gmail for the first time.

Google promised free calls to US and Canadian phones from Gmail for the rest of this year and said it would charge low rates for calls made to other countries.

For example it said calls to the U.K, France, Germany, China and Japan would be as low as 2 cents per minute.

It said making a call works like a normal phone in that a user could click on the "call phone" option in their chat buddy list and type the number or enter a contacts name.

Skype, owned by private equity firms and eBay Inc, has long allowed consumers to make phone calls from computers, as well as computer-to-computer voice and video calls. Skype said earlier this month it aims to raise as much as $100 million in a public share offering.

http://gulfnews.com/busin...l-1.673349

Tried it last night and it's awesome! I usually buy Skype credit for calling the US and Canada and now thanks to this, it's free! Amazing!

how-to video

http://news.cnet.com/8301...937-2.html

Gmail Users Make One Million Calls in 24 Hours

August 2010

Google's latest Gmail phone calling feature hit the ground running with over one million phone calls placed from Gmail in first 24 hours the feature was available, Google said Thursday via Twitter.

The big question is how many will make Gmail calls in the following 24 hours after people have gotten over the novelty of placing calls via their e-mail inbox.

This isn't terribly surprising that Google is has seen such day-one success considering Gmail has over 175 million monthly users, and the new feature is basically a combination of two popular services Gmail Voice Chat and Google Voice.

The feature, which is currently only available to U.S. Gmail users, allows users to place free "local" (within the United States and Canada) phone calls, as well as cheap international calls.

Google says it's subsidizing the "local" calls with the international calls' rates, though these rates are still quite low. You can call a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Argentina, China, and Japan, for as low as two cents per minute.

Google says that the local calls are free for now, and will be through at least the end of this year. However, things may change as the service catches on (though it looks like it already is).

The feature is not yet available to all U.S. Gmail users.

It's quite simple to use, however--at the top of your chat bar there is a "call phone" option. Simply click on it and a number pad will appear, on which you can dial your desired number and place a phone call. Naturally, a microphone is necessary in order for you to be able to communicate with the person on the other end of the line.

If you're just a regular user, the recipient of your call will see your phone number as 760-705-8888. If you have Google Voice, however, the two services will integrate and the recipient of your call will see your Google Voice number.

At the moment a lot of people are still wondering why Google has decided to roll out this feature at all (to up the interest in Google Voice? Have a head-to-head battle with Skype?). But, while it's free, we may as well take advantage of it--here's to a million more calls over Gmail in the next 24 hours.

http://www.pcworld.com/ar...?tk=hp_new

[Edited 8/27/10 18:16pm]

/\ That article is incorrect. It's available here in the UK too.

Really? I'm very pleased that it isn't a North American-only service.

Identity said:

Really? I'm very pleased that it isn't a North American-only service.

Yeah. Been using it for the last couple of days. I usually buy Skype credit to call the US, so I'm very happy about this.

I got a missed call from this phone number and when I didn't recognize this number, googled it since when I called,

it said the number had been disconnected or no longer in service.

So whoever has been trying to call me is calling from their e-mail.