Gmail is becoming more powerful with native applications built inside it. First, with Labs feature it added a number of things and now with video and voice chat capabilities, Gmail is becoming even more versatile.

The Labs feature provides a number of options for Gmail, the new “voice and video chat” feature makes Gmail even more productive. Previously, there was chat feature enabled in Gmail, but it provided only text messaging feature, now it adds video chatting feature.

The new “voice and video chat” feature provides a high quality video and audio features and is compatible with existing internet standards such as XMPP, RTP and H.264. So, third-party applications and networks can coexist with Gmail “voice and video chat”.

To use this feature follow these steps:

1. Download and Install the voice and video plug-in from Google.

2. Restart the browser (preferably Firefox 3.0).

3. Logon to the Gmail and click the user you want to video or voice chat with from the chat window section.

4. Click the bottom of the chat window and choose “Start video chat”.

5. You will now see your friend live right within the Gmail.

6. You can either pop-out the window to make it separate from the Gmail by clicking the “pop-out” icon or click the full screen icon in the upper left hand corner for a full video chat.

This “voice and video chat” feature is available for both PC and Mac operating systems. It will be available as a standard feature for all users in the next few days, but if you want to go ahead and add it now, you can download the plug-in from the site http://gmail.com/videochat.

It is a great productivity tool for businesses to have and it is all free.