Bearing in mind that Gmail is essentially a webmail service, that you are likely to check from a web cafe or work 'puter which is probably locked down, how useful is this if you have to install something?

I find it almost as pointless as Microsoft's message on MSN Webmessenger that says "Install Windows Live! Messenger now!" - don't they realise that if I could do that then I would and I have to use webmessnger out of necessity, not out of choice!?

I'd be impressed if Google could just implement push email from gmail - like Yahoo!, etc...

Umm... Google.... How could you have forgotten the OS to the gods - the so-called Linux? Open this page http://mail.google.com/videochat with a GNU/Linux based browser and see what you get:

"Gmail voice and video chat is not yet available for Linux."

Oooh, not YET... Well I can wait :)

No interest from me.

don't worry a strongly worded letter from the OSS will be writeen soon. oh sorry forgot, it's not the BBC...

Move along..

Will it reboot my PC? :o

Mines the one with the Nokia N95 8GB with Fring for Skype and MSN Messenger installed...

Sorry, but what's the point of linking an audio/video app to an email/chat? Let me rephrase that, what's the point of emailing/chatting when you are on an audio/video-link with the same guy?

It's like getting a free Ferrari when you buy a Ford Fiesta.

And anyway what's revolutionary about this? I've been able to do this for years with NetMeeting, Skype etc.

I hate the web installers that detect you have a proxy, but then don't prompt you to enter your credentials. If they cannot get this to work, then I guess getting the actual app to work behind a firewall will be an epic fail too,

It sounds like this is just doing voice/video over Jabber/XMPP (the IM protocol Google Talk uses), so it sounds like it'd be possible for the feature to work beyond GMail. It might even allow voice chat with existing jingle enabled Jabber clients already.

So support for other platforms should be possible, although maybe not easily from within GMail.

Just when I was starting to really like their Google Talk app... they implement video chat *outside* of it (or am I confused here?)

Give me video chat in Google Talk and I'll ditch Skype for good!

And of course, count my vote for Linux support too.

Does it run GNU/Linux?

...and the Google Talk widget. I work in a U.S. government office, where Gmail's chat feature is disabled. Google Talk can be installed (indirectly; wink, wink!) but it can't support video.

I've read the two white papers from the company that developed the video technology. It's truly amazing stuff, going beyond Apple iChat's H.264 by intelligently dropping down in quality (S/N ratio), frame rate, and image dimensions when bandwidth is scarce, so as to prevent the image from freezing up.

By remaining silent on plans to add video to Google Talk, Google may be signaling an agressive move to "inspire" users of competing email systems into Gmail and, thereby, into the Google ecosystem.

By the way, when you use video in gmail chat, you can't use it to connect to your AIM buddies. Nor can you hold a group video call: It's like Skype: You can have a 3-way call or video, but not both.