Google Relaunches Gmail SMS Service

The merging of online and mobile continues: Google has relaunched the company’s Gmail-based SMS text messaging service after running into some trouble with it back in October, CNET News reports.

“A few weeks back, we ran into a few snags when we first started rolling this out, but starting today you can turn on text messaging for chat,” said Leo Dirac, a Google product manager, in a blog post Wednesday.

Once Gmail subscribers enable the feature via the Gmail Labs page, they can initiate SMS-based instant message chats by “typing in a phone number in the chat box on the left of the Gmail page,” according to the report. Messages will arrive on handsets from a number in the 406 area code; each user gets their own 406 number, so they can save it for future messages.

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