Gmail SMS Gchat gets delayed by glitch

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 03 November 2008 13:07

Opinion and Analysis

The Official Gmail Blog explains that while Gmail SMS texting in Gchat seemed to be working properly, a bug came along to spoil the party.

A post at the blog explains all: 

“Oh snap. Last night, we started rolling out a new feature to Gmail Labs that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail.

“It combines the best parts of IM and texting: you chat from your computer and reach your friends no matter where they are.

“Your friends who are away from their computers get your messages as texts and can peck out replies on their little keyboards. It was pretty cool for a few minutes last night when we were sitting around texting each other.

“Then we found a glitch. When you'd try to turn it on, it wouldn't fully enable. We thought about keeping it out there -- bugs and all -- but the experience wasn't that great.

“So, in the spirit of Labs, we've pulled SMS chat back to fix it, and we'll get it back out to you as soon as it's ready -- probably within 2 weeks, so stay tuned.”

It’s important to remember that even when Gmail SMS in Gchat comes back online, it will only work with US mobile phone numbers for now – there’s no word on when the service will be rolled out worldwide.

This is likely because international SMS text messages cost a lot more to send that domestic SMS messages, and while this can be circumvented via local gateways in different countries, it’s still infrastructure that Google has to set up and manage.

Google certainly has the resources to do so but US only numbers is a start – no doubt Google will trumpet SMS availability elsewhere around the world loudly and proudly when they’re ready to roll!