iGoogle continues to get better and better, now you can add a widget featuring the same chat feature that you have grown to love in Gmail. A very cool part of the chat widget within iGoogle is that you can invite non Gmail users to come and talk with you.

All you have to do is invite them as a chat buddy, and if they accept your invitation and sign up for iGoogle with their personal email account, their name becomes just a click away right on your page. Don’t want to be bothered while you’re checking out the latest news or reading your emails? You have a couple of options to hid the chat feature. You can either click the chat “options” link and selecting “hide chat,” or sign off completely by selecting “sign out of chat.”

Differences between chatting in iGoogle and Gmail

iGoogle’s chat feature is integrated into the Google Talk network, so messages you send using Gmail chat, and changes you make to your contacts and status, are fully synchronized. However, the following chat features are available only in Gmail’s chat feature:

• Pop out windows
• Offline messages
• Group chat
• AIM integration
• Video chat