Google Labs' SMS-from-chat is an elegant solution.
I've sent more text
messages today than ever before in a single 24-hour period. Admittedly, "more
than ever" actually means about 10 but, thanks to Google,
this may only be the beginning.
I'm just a few years
too old to be truly fluent in text messages, as far as I can tell. I don't like
triple-typing, I don't own a smart-phone with a nice keypad, and the predictive
text on my Motorola leaves a lot to be desired. So, unless I'm in a library, I
am likely to respond to a text with a phone call. It just seems easier. On the
other hand, I am chained to the computer as only a geek can be, and am
available by instant message easily 16 hours out of the day.
Most of my family is
not this way. They check their e-mail accounts once a week so there's no way to
send them a quick message. That's why I was thrilled to see that GoogleLabs now
lets me send text messages from Gmail and Gtalk.
Google Labs has a lot
of neat little widgets, some silly, and some useful. For example, Mail
Goggles is mean to stop potentially embarrassing late-night drunken e-mails
by forcing users to solve math problems before the "send" button will
activate. Surely, this is mostly a joke.
Forgotten
Attachment Detector, on the other hand, which alerts you when it suspects
you may have neglected to attach a file, could have saved me much agony in the
past. Neat as these toys are, text messaging in chat made me literally write
home.
It's not the first time
a company has tried to unify communications this way. Not long ago, I wrote a story about similar technology called VoxOx.
But Google has done things beautifully, in just the way that has made their
webmail, feed reader, search, and all the rest so popular.
To send a text message
from Gmail, I type in the phone number and click "Send SMS." When my
friend replies to the message, it pops up in Gmail, or on Gtalk, and I can
respond as if chatting through IM. I've already used it to plan my evening
tonight.
I sometimes get nervous
about how many of Google's services I use, but when they're this good, how can
I help myself?
Comments
phoenix
12/15/2008
Posts:172