Gmail users place 1M calls in 24 hours
It looks like Gmail users are already taking advantage of the cheap calling that Google launched yesterday. The company announced via Twitter that there were 1 million calls placed from Gmail in 24 hours.
The feature is particularly attractive if you’re contacting someone in the US or Canada, because those calls are completely free. Google says it’s subsidizing those calls through its international rates, but those are pretty low too — you can call many countries for just two cents a minute.
The rapid adoption isn’t too surprising, since Google says there are hundreds of millions of Gmail users globally (although the feature is only available to US users for now), and a “significant percentage” of them already take advantage of the service’s video chat capabilities. So if you get a note in Gmail that you can place a free phone call, why wouldn’t you click and try it out? The only hurdle is that you have to install some software before it will work.
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About the Author, Anthony Ha
Anthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.
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