Gaurav's Blog

Google has integrated its Google Talk/IM functionality into GMail. It doesn’t replace Google Talk (because there’s no VoIP yet). But it does:

* Potentially differentiate GMail
* Offer the first (that I know of) browser access to IM/chat
* Potentially expose more GMail users to Google Talk functionality and thus, longer term, potentially boost the Google Talk user base.

Chat “transcripts” are archived like mail and will be scanned like mail and contextually relevant ads will be served against them. More GMail usage = more page views, more ads and more clicks.

Now that it’s live in my GMail account and I’ve had a bit of a chance to use it, I can say that the integration is very convenient seems to work well. (Although it takes a little getting used to).