In addition to Gmail, the outage also affected Google Drive, Google Chat, Google Calendar, Google Play and Google Chrome Sync.
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Tools such as Google Chat and Google Mail are beta products, requiring users to give feedback on problems and suggestions.
How often do you use Google Chat or Skype or some other video tool to catch up with loved ones?
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But increasingly unreliable connections to Google in recent months have hindered downloads and sharply reduced the effectiveness of instant-messaging service Google Chat, he said.
According to a study published by tech consultancy Ovum, WhatsApp is the world's third most popular social messaging service after Facebook Chat and Google Chat.
At minimum to keep up Google would need to add Google Chat as part of the browser so that people could chat with their friends while visiting non-Google web pages.
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The interoperability issue among video carriers is somewhat similar in proprietary Instant Messaging systems, which also await unification among their providers so that someone on, say, Yahoo IM can talk to a Google Chat consumer.
"Google has a chat application, Web-based search, and there is no one cohesive Google mobile application, which is important to have in a mobile environment where you want to be able to switch between applications, " she says.
The upgrade also allows consumers to enjoy the full benefits of the Android Gingerbread platform including Google Talk with Video Chat.
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Google Talk Chatback enabled web masters to allow users to chat with them from the site but Google recently acquired Meebo which provides this functionality though Meebo Bar.
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And they want to video-chat with fans in a Google Plus hangout.
Could integrations with other social services come next, or the ability to chat through other IM services like Google or AIM?
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Teen enthusiasm is helping oovoo compete against larger, more established rivals like Skype and the video chat services run by Apple and Google.
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The software is an important addition to Google's catalog, but offering IM and chat is just keeping up with the Joneses.
Google released a new instant messaging and voice-chat program, ending months of speculation over whether the search giant would enter the heated IM market.
In what passes for a publicity stunt for hackers, Todd Simpson, Chief of Innovation at Mozilla (the maker of Firefox), and Hugh Finnan, Director of Product Management for Google Chrome, staged a high-definition video chat through their respective browsers, and posted the video above.
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Google on Wednesday released a new instant messaging and voice chat program, ending months of speculation over whether the search giant would enter the heated IM market.
Until now Google offered computer-to-computer voice and video chat services.
Google Talk (which I prefer to call g-chat) is the instant messaging service that accompanies Gmail and is singlehandedly responsible for decreasing workplace productivity by 5 to 50 percent.
Google and Singtel are rapidly signing up small and medium-sized companies in Asia to use the Google Apps suite of web software (email, video, chat, office software like Microsoft Office).
The engineers behind Google Talk have also made mention of new mobile versions of the chat software that are expected in coming months.
After Raphie blew away the crowd and judges (one of them offered him an internship at Facebook, another at Google), I had the opportunity to connect with him and chat about his project, how he learned to hack at the tender age of 15, and which companies excite him right now.
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Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Mozilla recently demonstrated Chrome to Firefox browser chat connectivity recently, talking up tools developers can use to build Web real-time communication apps.
But the last thing the social networking behemoth wants is the constant reference that Google, regarded as a Johnny-come-lately as far as social is concerned, got video chat out of the gate first.
Announced over the weekend, encrypted chat service Cryptocat will soon be accessible only by downloading a local browser extension for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
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Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) released a new instant messaging and voice-chat program, ending months of speculation over whether the search giant would enter the heated IM market.
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