Google Blends Instant Messaging With Email:

(AP) MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Online search engine leader Google is
wedding its instant messaging and email services in the same Web
browser.

The Mountain View-based company hopes the convenience will lure users
from the larger communications networks operated by its chief rivals.

The new chat feature to be unveiled Tuesday will provide users of
Google's gmail service with a list of contacts drawn from past email
exchanges and then signal who's available for online conversations.

(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

It is in Gmail now. I just logged in and there it was. This seems to be pretty much what people predicted. Now... just wait until the voice recognize our voice chats and give us transcripts ;)

I'm glad Google is pushing data retention forward. Before Gmail, the big e-mail providers (Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL) pretty much required you to prune your e-mail. Not only has the size of the average webmail account skyrocketed in the last two years, now they are making it easy for the average user to have a chat history. Thanks Google! :)

Andrew

PS: Here are some images:
http://andrewhitchcock.org/images/gmailchatsfolder.png
http://andrewhitchcock.org/images/gmailchathistory.png