By Brian Womack
Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., the most popular Internet search engine, is adding videoconferencing features to its Gmail e-mail service to lure users from Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
Users can chat for free using Gmail by installing a small add-on program to their browser, Google said today in a statement. Those without a Webcam can use an audio chat option.
Google is trying to capitalize on the growing popularity of videoconferencing, which consumers use to chat with friends and companies rely on to reduce travel costs and connect employees in multiple locations. Microsoft already offers videoconferencing through its Windows Live instant-messaging software. Google's product is different because it works through the Web browser, said Keith Coleman, product manager for Gmail.
``This is one of those things that is very subtle and very simple, but I think can change the way you communicate and the way you work,'' Coleman said in an interview. ``It's very easy to have these very fast, fluid conversations.''
The videoconferencing feature is also available to users of Google Apps, the company's set of online applications, which includes word-processing and spreadsheet software. Companies from Hewlett-Packard Co. to Cisco Systems Inc. also offer corporate videoconferencing products.
Google, based in Mountain View, California, fell $7.32 to $311.46 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have lost 55 percent this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net.
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