One million calls in 24 hours. That’s Google’s story with its just-introduced Gmail phone-calling feature. Google sent a message via Twitter announcing the near-immediate milestone and thanking people for trying the feature.
Google has more than 175 million users, and the service isn’t even available to all users yet. Google started rolling it out in phases on Wednesday.
Google’s service allows users to make telephone calls from the Gmail interface. Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year. Google promised to add international calling at low rates in the near future.
“A good deal of those million phone calls were from folks who were just testing out the feature to see if it works,” said Michael Gartenberg, partner at Altimeter Group. “The question is, will they continue to use it? I think the answer is yes.”
Google’s Social Hub
Gmail users have been chatting through PC microphones and speakers via a service called Google Talk since 2005. But until now Gmail users couldn’t dial into landlines. Both Gmail users had to be sitting behind their computers and signed into Gmail to talk.
“This shows how Google is looking to build a set of services that become a hub of social activity, and one of the social activities we forget is the good old telephone,” Gartenberg said. “By integrating telephony into the overall communications experience, Google has given users one more reason to stay with Google services like Gmail and Google Voice.”
Google has designed a user-friendly interface for the service. Users dial a phone number in much the same way they would a normal telephone, but with a mouse instead of fingers. When users click “Call phone” at the top of their chat list and dial a number or enter a contact’s name, it rings…