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Text Messaging Launches on Gmail and Google Chat, Finally

by Tim Stevens on October 31, 2008 at 01:45 PM

Text Messages Coming to GmailWe love Google's Gmail service, with its gigabytes (GB) of free storage and clean interface, and we also love keeping up with friends using the Google Talk chat service. The two have long been integrated, enabling you to chat in real-time from within the Gmail page, but now Google is adding another dimension: the ability to send SMS text messages to phones as you would to another person on Google Chat.

You can now send a chat message to a mobile phone number and Google will send that message as an SMS to the recipient's phone, all without charging you a dime. The only catch is that the text will appear to come from some random number in the 406 area code, but Google is indicating it will associate that number with you uniquely, so that your friends can reply to that number and you'll get the text as a chat response. Google is currently rolling out the feature to Gmail users, and by the end of the day you should be able to enable it by clicking on "Settings" and then on "Labs" if you're so inclined. Of course, this is nothing new to AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger users, who have been able to send text messages to cell phones for several years now. [From: Webmonkey]

Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, gmail, google, google talk, GoogleTalk, sms, text, text messaging, texting, TextMessaging

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