Google announced today that the free phone calls through Gmail added in 2010 have been extended for another year. Domestic calls in the U.S. and Canada are free, and international calls have a low fee schedule starting at $0.02 per minute. Users can also choose to link this to a free Google Voice account to receive inbound calls.
It’s no surprise that Google has extended this service, since it just added it to Google+ Hangouts two weeks ago. Google has made several changes to Gmail chat to unify it with Google+, and this voice calling extends the reach of Gmail and Google+ to vastly more users.
In November, all Google chat widgets were reorganized to use Google+ circles instead of email addresses. This includes the Gmail chat box where voice calls are made. Last week, the integration of Gmail into Google+ went further, bringing filtering by circles, people-circling and G+ sharing into Gmail.
In the meantime, Google brought the same free voice calling feature into Google+ video Hangouts. Google is putting hooks into its new social world everywhere it can, and free voice calling is a powerful one. Existing users can reach more people, and those they call will get the pitch, “I’m calling you from my email!” It’s a clever way for Google to extend the reach of its services.
Have you ever made a voice call from a Google Web service before?
