New in Gmail Labs : Task and SMS Text Messaging for chat!

After a pulled-back launch back in late October, Google has re-released SMS capabilities in Gmail Chat. It’s still an “experimental feature” in Gmail Labs, but presumably after the false start it’ll actually work this time—in the U.S.

We’re just trying it out for cell phones in the United States right now, but you can send texts to your friends with US phone numbers from anywhere in the world. You can start by just typing a phone number or into the search box in the chat window on the left, then select “Send SMS.” You can also select the contact you want to SMS first and then add their phone number.

Recipients will be able to respond to you, and you’ll get their message in the chat window.

On the receiving end, when you get a text message from Gmail on your phone, it will come from a number in the 406 area code. (The l33t folks in the crowd will note that this spells G0O.) You can reply to this text on your phone just like you’d reply to any other text. The reply gets routed back to our Gmail servers and shows up in your friend’s Gmail chat window. Each of your friends’ messages will come from a different 406 number so you can reply to any message and it will get back to the right person. Messages from the same person will always come from the same number, so you can even bookmark it in your phone.

	Tasks Keep track of what you need to do with a lightweight task list right inside of Gmail. Just click and type to add new tasks, convert emails into tasks, and (most satisfyingly) check them off as you’re done. Once you turn on this Labs feature, look for the Tasks link to the left of your inbox under Contacts.
	Text Messaging in Chat Send SMS text messages right from Gmail. You chat from your comfy computer and reach your friends on the go; they get your messages as texts and can peck out replies on their little keyboards.
To get started with these Labs features and more, click Settings and go to the Labs tab. Then select “Enable” next to the features you want to turn on and click “Save Changes.”