Twenty-four hours after it introduced a new service that lets Gmail subscribers place phone calls from their desktops, Google reported that one million people had tried the service. The service lets Gmail account holders to make voice calls to any traditional phone number from their Gmail account once they have installed of a voice and video plug-in. For now the calls are free in the US and Canada and quite reasonably priced for international. However the real opportunity for advertising for Skype - and presumably Google given the similarity between the two services - will be found in ad formats that don't exist yet, Fortune goes on to say. Also they assume Google's ulterior motive is less about disrupting the telecommunications and more about driving engagement within Gmail and its social-networking activities, to better compete with social networks such as Facebook.
