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Google has added group chat and emoticons into the chat client that’s built inside Gmail. You can now check your mails and have a group conversation at the same time, without having to switch between tabs or application.
Group chat can be initiated by clicking on the Options link at the bottom of a conversation window. You’ll see "Group Chat" as a new option, just select that and type the name of the person you’d like to add to your current conversation. If you cannot see the group chat option, try signing out and logging in again.
And finally, emoticons have also been introduced. No more plain, boring ":)" in your chat conversation, however, it is still available. Actually there are three sets on emoticons – plain, round and square.
I rarely use Gmail’s chat interface because I check all my mails on Thunderbird. Nevertheless, I’m a great fan of Google Talk’s desktop client. Now that group chat is available in both GTalk gadget and Gmail’s chat client, I’m starting to wonder when Google will add this wonderful feature to their desktop client. Any guess?
[Via: Mashable]
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wrote, on November 29th, 2007
Google seem to develop some specific products at their own pace. The Gtalk client has been ignored for much too long and so never achieved the popularity of the Yahoo client. They should take some tips from Pidgin and make it connect to all the major networks and add integration with all the other Google services. Then and only then will I consider using it.
wrote, on November 30th, 2007
these features were available in the web version of gtalk for past few months. nice to c this integrated to gmail itself….
wrote, on November 30th, 2007
Google is always developing themselves, But now a days it is very much intense. I have seen this feature provided by google at the top of my page, but I never used that one. I am sure that will change things when you want to talk to many people and share one view for all. There may be a kind of net meeting. So, this feature is useful for sure.
wrote, on December 2nd, 2007
To come to think of it, I wonder why they had not built this in before
wrote, on December 4th, 2007
[...] Gmail has been receiving lots of new features like IMAP and Group Chat. The latest feature to be included in Gmail 2 is colored labels, which lets users easily categorize [...]
wrote, on December 12th, 2007
That’s one nice upgrade I heard of, looking forward to work on the better and more interactive gmail. I expect Google not to overdo it like yahoo.