Move over Skype?
November 15th 2008 03:21
Anyone who uses Gmail regularly will notice a new, bright red link at the top of the page, which announces New! Video Chat.
Once you've clicked on the link, you're told that you can See and hear family and friends right inside Gmail . Of course, there's one small problem: you have to have a webcam and you have to have it set up, but apart from that, this new video chat sounds promising.
My [geek] son and I occasionally use Gmail chat when we're at work - it's a quick way to get a response about some question or other, and, as he says, he thinks he's better at teaching by chat than he is on the phone. Certainly on the phone it's difficult to do things with one hand while holding the phone with the other. I guess that was always one of the benefits of chat, even apart from the Gmail version.
We've used Skype on and off for some time, especially while we were overseas last year. In general it worked pretty well, at least as far as voice only was concerned. Video quality was and still is variable, and sometimes by the time you've got the video to work properly you've spent several minutes 'chatting' with the other person about nothing at all.
The new Gmail version promises that you'll be able to
* Chat more ways than ever from within Gmail
* Look and sound your best with high quality audio and video
* Get started easily -- all you need is a webcam.
The software is free, and installs in seconds. It doesn't mention download or upload time, which might turn out to be an issue. Certainly Gmail on the whole always seems pretty speedy to me, certainly far faster than Outlook which I use at work for the office, and which has to go through some network system to send or receive. (Gmail does too, of course, since it's on the same computer, but for some reason it's far superior.)
I haven't signed up for Gmail's new video chat as yet: need to decide where in the house we're going to put the webcam - it usually sits on the laptop, and the laptop (being movable) tends to shift about a bit.
But I think it'll be worth a try.
Yesterday when I checked out the 'learn more' section on this video chat, I didn't seem to get anything except some promotional bags about which webcams I could buy. However, today it's functioning and there's a little more information. There's also a video from 'Serge' demonstrating the way video chat works. Note however, that his voice is fractionally ahead of the video and that the video of Serge is actually 'filmed' rather than being a direct video clip. At one point the 'webcam' moves into a medium shot of him rather than a close up. Cool, but unlikely with your webcam!
Once you've clicked on the link, you're told that you can See and hear family and friends right inside Gmail . Of course, there's one small problem: you have to have a webcam and you have to have it set up, but apart from that, this new video chat sounds promising.
My [geek] son and I occasionally use Gmail chat when we're at work - it's a quick way to get a response about some question or other, and, as he says, he thinks he's better at teaching by chat than he is on the phone. Certainly on the phone it's difficult to do things with one hand while holding the phone with the other. I guess that was always one of the benefits of chat, even apart from the Gmail version.
We've used Skype on and off for some time, especially while we were overseas last year. In general it worked pretty well, at least as far as voice only was concerned. Video quality was and still is variable, and sometimes by the time you've got the video to work properly you've spent several minutes 'chatting' with the other person about nothing at all.
The new Gmail version promises that you'll be able to
* Chat more ways than ever from within Gmail
* Look and sound your best with high quality audio and video
* Get started easily -- all you need is a webcam.
The software is free, and installs in seconds. It doesn't mention download or upload time, which might turn out to be an issue. Certainly Gmail on the whole always seems pretty speedy to me, certainly far faster than Outlook which I use at work for the office, and which has to go through some network system to send or receive. (Gmail does too, of course, since it's on the same computer, but for some reason it's far superior.)
I haven't signed up for Gmail's new video chat as yet: need to decide where in the house we're going to put the webcam - it usually sits on the laptop, and the laptop (being movable) tends to shift about a bit.
But I think it'll be worth a try.
Gmail promotional screenshot
Yesterday when I checked out the 'learn more' section on this video chat, I didn't seem to get anything except some promotional bags about which webcams I could buy. However, today it's functioning and there's a little more information. There's also a video from 'Serge' demonstrating the way video chat works. Note however, that his voice is fractionally ahead of the video and that the video of Serge is actually 'filmed' rather than being a direct video clip. At one point the 'webcam' moves into a medium shot of him rather than a close up. Cool, but unlikely with your webcam!
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Skype is a way of talking via your computer to someone in another part of the world (close by or far away) just as you would on a telephone. Except that there isn't a telephone in sight. The computer does the connecting for you, via Skype's software, which you install on your computer. Don't ask me how it works. I just know it does.
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