Users can now make calls with their Gmail accounts, using this service they
can now place calls to landline and mobile phones. The free voice calls are used until the end of the year and are offered only in the US and Canada while International calls cost at low rates; a link is shown with countries and their rates.
Craig Walker, product manager for real-time communications told BBC News “This is a real big deal because now hundreds of millions of Gmail users can make phone calls right from their Gmail page. They don’t need to download an added application or anything to start making really high-quality low-cost calls. For the user it means much more efficient and low-cost communications.”
The firm stated that the product is spread out in the US, in the mean time international users can make use of the feature being offered because of an error.
A spokesperson said, “Unintentionally we briefly made the service available to non-US English users and we do hope to bring it to our international users soon.”
The feature will appear on the left hand part of the Gmail page within the “chat” window. When you click on the “call phone” option, a number pad will pop up to let you dial the number of the person you want to talk to.
“Money raised from international calls will pay for the free US and Canadian calls,” said Google.
Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of technology blog SearhEngineLand stated “What surprised me was that they actually said they hope to make money off the calls.”
“Normally Google is like ‘We don’t know how we are going to make the money’ or ‘We will make money down the way, don’t worry about it’ and this stands out as a big benefit that they get actual revenue early on.”
This new feature from Google will benefit a lot of people from different countries especially those who are working oversees so they can keep in touch with their family and love ones. Commonly, people are using Skype for internet phone and it takes users to adjust and try to use the new Google feature being offered.
As the senior writer with technology news site CNET.com Tom Krazit stated, “Skype is a well known company in this place and they are almost like a verb in the internet calling world in the way Google is with search. You Skype someone. So I think there is some inertia there to get over and I am interested to see how Gmail users respond.”
Google has change the way things on the internet, people can benefit from using this feature and pretty soon they will create a mobile version just like Skype. How cool is that! For people out there, you need to try the new feature being offered and see what it can do.
Source: Google offers free voice calls via Gmail
