I spent the first 30 minutes of my waking hours this morning not by working out to burn the fat at the mid-section but to try out Gmail’s latest feature, which is, a web phone call service — something like Skype, but not exactly.
The first thing I did was to sign in into Gmail, click on the phone icon on the left sidebar, and from there, I was promoted to download and install Google voice and video software.
After installing it, the Firefox browser restarted and when I got it back, I re-signed in into the Gmail account, clicked on the phone icon again and out popped a dialer. I dialed my own number and I could hear an analog-type dialing tone as Gmail tries to reach my mobile.
Some seconds later, bingo! My phone rang, showing a local Celcom number as the caller.
I can now call any phone number, either mobile or fixed line, anywhere in the world from my Gmail. Of course, I need to have a microphone hooked on my computer to be able to actually talk with the person at the end of the line.
You can try it out now, using the US$0.10 credit available when you activate the service. If you want to make more calls, you can top it up using using your credit card.
Google’s latest move, with cheap rate to boot, brings the search engine giant in head-to-head competition with VoIP players like Skype and telco operators. The rate is cheap, for instance, someone calling from the United States to Malaysia need only to pay US$0.04 for mobile phone number and US$0.02 for a fixed line number. Here is a complete list of Gmail phone call rates (for calls from the US to the rest of the world).
You can also video chat right from Gmail. See instruction below: