Free Telephony, Brought to You by Google

I previously complained about Google's poor integration between their own products.  For example, I've previously blogged about how Google Voice is a fantastic service (multiple times), but it has remained separate from Google Talk, their instant messenger.  "Aren't those separate technologies?"  Not when Google Chat lets you do voice chat and send/receive messages from cell phones.  So you're left with two products that offer almost identical VOIP services that don't talk to each other.

Until now.

The core feature of Google Voice is the ability to have one phone number that redirects to many phone numbers.  And now, it can also redirect to your Google Chat.  You can also use Google Voice to initiate calls.  That means you can now go to google.com/voice, tell it who to call, and it will connect their phone line to your computer (using G Chat).

To be sure, computer-based telephony has been around for a long time.  In fact, it used to be the only way to connect to the internet (remember modems?).  Skype does the same thing . . . for a price.  (Yes, Skype is free for computer-to-computer calls, but computer-to-telephone calls cost money.)  This is arguably a game changer because now you can make calls for free, over your computer, using Google Voice + Google Chat.  (I've taken it a step further and integrated G Chat with Pidgin, my favorite IM client.  So I don't have to run any special software, other than my web browser.)

Nifty.