Gmail Gets Chatty

Google debuted Gmail Chat on Tuesday, a service that would allow users of the client to start instant messaging chats from their Gmail account, as well as save their chat like e-mail messages or see when contacts are online through the Google Talk network. The features are very similar to those recently added to MSN's Hotmail service and Yahoo's mail client. The service will work with either the Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 1.0 browsers.

Gmail Chat will also synchronize a users Quick Contact list with his or her messaging contacts list to show a list of that person's most frequently contacted buddies. When a chat is initiated from this list, a chat window would open from within the browser, thus eliminating the need for the user to download the standalone Google Talk client.