I just noticed. The google gmail chat feature is now activated. You can see on your left panel the status of gmail account holders in your address book.

I think it's annoying, every time you scroll over a user's name in gmail now, a little annoying popup saying if they're online or not.

Oh cool..
I don't think the popup thing is that annoying but its better if it wasn't there.

What exactly is the point of the chat feature? I find it pretty annoying to keep having it pop up all the time when checking mail.

Well I think the point of it is so that it is more like Yahoo, which has the call option in the e-mail (I believe). Unfortunately, it's more annoying than anything else.

thanks for the post and information, now I can talk to all my family members without having to wait a while for a reply

ITs is ok bit a tad BIG

yeah I do notice that the pop-ups are really annoying me. If only they created a system where they filed the users under different categories of offline/online state. Like they have in normal instant message chats.