More Cheap Trick Thursday: send free text messages through Gmail's Chat
Here's a cheap trick that will save you -- and your teenagers! -- time and money.
Say you're a Gmail user who spends more time near a computer than is generally healthy. Why, then, waste thumb energy pecking out text messages to your latest love interest when you could employ all 10 fingers?
Simply enable Gmail's new Text Messaging in Chat function and you too can send and receive SMS messages to people at any mobile phone number for free.Any number, at least, in the United States. Sorry, overseas readers!
This tip will help those of us out there who have not signed up for unlimited text messaging plans. Of course, you may have known you could use e-mail to send text messages, but that requires you to know what cell phone carrier each of your contacts uses, which just isn't practical.
UPDATE: any Google Talk users out there? Can you now text through GChat as well?
But the bigger question is: why do text messages cost so danged much in the first place?!
As Consumer Reports explains, text messages take muuuuch less processing power to transmit than voice calls. In fact, the magazine states that 500 text messages contain less data than a 1-minute voice transmission yet cost up to 20 cents each.
So, you'd think mobile phone service providers would be doing everything they can to encourage us to text instead of call. According to CR, the companies argue that people with text message plans pay less per message, but if you don't text enough to make a plan worthwhile, it amounts to nickel-and-diming.
I say, fight the problem by removing the revenue stream. If you pay per message, use Gmail's Chat function when possible.
Categories: Cellular/Landline/Voice over Internet, Cheap/Frugal
