Near the end of last year, Google brought in the video chat feature to its Gmail service, meaning you could have video and audio conversations with other users of the product over the Internet, for free. Google, not satisfied with leaving it at that, have now expanded their feature to their customizable home page, iGoogle, making things a bit handier.
As Mashable reported, this new video chat allows you to talk to people who aren"t Gmail users, making it a bit more accessible to some people, though keep in mind that both parties will need a free Google account. In addition to this, and similar to the Gmail solution, you"ll need to download a small plug-in from the Google Talk page. This feature will make it much easier for those who, again, don"t wish to use Gmail; by having this available right on your home page (providing you use iGoogle, of course), then it"s never far away.
As Mashable points out, Google seems to be moving users more towards social networking lately, with chat and video built right into their email service, as well as having their new Google Wave in development, and now this feature on the home page for a search engine. It certainly will be interesting to see where they go in the future, but for now, we"ve got this new feature to toy with; if you use video chat, give it a try, and tell us how it goes.