GOOGLE CHAT: Real-time collaborative chat, as demonstrated by apps like Slack, has become a frequent way for colleagues and friends to interact, especially since so many of us began working from home last year. Google appears to have noticed this and is attempting to compete with Slack by incorporating two features from its corporate Workplace software suite — Chat and Rooms — into its basic Gmail interface.
Google Conversation allows you to have informal or formal chat sessions with your friends and groups of friends. The former can be done between two people or among a group of people in what Google refers to as a group conversation. The latter is accomplished through a distinct place known as a Room by Google.
What’s the difference between the two? According to Google, Chat is just a method for two or more people to communicate without any formality — for example, if you wanted to quickly discuss where you were going to meet for lunch, you’d start a group conversation with your pals. It’s over when the conversation is finished.
A Room, on the other hand, is designed for more in-depth discussions. Each room has its own name, maybe left and rejoined at any time, sends out notifications, and allows users to share files. It’s perfect for business projects, party planning, or any other activity in which you want to keep the dialogue continuing for days, weeks, or even months.’
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, the first step is to enable Google Chat for your Gmail account. You must do it separately on your browser and on your mobile device for the time being.
On the bottom of the screen, instead of just Mail and Meet icons, you’ll now also have Chat and Rooms icons.
Your Gmail interface will refresh, and a pop-up will most likely welcome you to the “new Gmail.” You’ll now have a Chatbox, a Rooms box, and a Meet box instead of the Meet and Hangouts boxes that used to be on the left-hand side of your Gmail screen. Any contacts with whom you previously had Hangouts talks will display in the new Chatbox; click on their names to see those past discussions in a small pop-up window in the lower left. (Note that if you previously blocked someone on Hangouts, the blocking will not be carried over to Chat.)
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You may notice some additional minor adjustments following the refresh before we get into the intricacies of how to use Google Chat. To begin, a couple of quote bubbles will replace the icon that looked like a quote mark at the bottom of your left column, which referred to Google Hangouts. The old enormous “Compose” button in the upper-left corner will be replaced by an inconveniently small pencil icon (for reasons I don’t understand). You can now select to be active, away, or undisturbed by clicking the option to the right of the search box; you can also enter in your own status.
People who have been invited to your chat will receive an email with a link and the opportunity to join or block the conversation; if they are using Hangouts or Chat, they will receive a notification.
To add a new message, enter into the field at the bottom of the screen, whether you’re using the web or a mobile app. You can add emoji, upload a file, add a file from Google Drive, start a video meeting (basically, launch Google Meet) and plan an event using a series of icons to the side or below the entry area.
A couple of notes about rooms: if you’ve created a room using a personal account (as opposed to a business account), anyone in the room can change its name. There are a few other rules as to the use of rooms that can be found on a Google support page; it’s a little confusing as to which apply just to business accounts and which to personal accounts, but hopefully, Google will fix that in the near future.
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