Google today announced the addition of voice and video chat to Gmail. Just like the recent additions of Google Calendars and Google Docs to the left nav panel, users can use the voice and video chat options from inside Gmail.

Announced via Google’s official Gmail blog, the plugin is available by clicking here (http://mail.google.com/videochat). Once you’ve installed the plugin, you can start a video chat by clicking on “Video & more” menu at the bottom of your Gmail chat window and select start video chate. Similar to GTalk you can click the "pop-out" icon to make the video larger, or click the fullscreen icon in the upper left-hand corner to make things really, really big.

One of the cooler things about this is that Google is even helping you to get yourself a webcam at a discounted price. In an effort to get everyone using the feature, Google has teamed up with Buy.com and peripherals manufacturer Logitech to offer people up to 30 percent off certain models.

A link for the application should appear in your Gmail soon enough and everyone will be pleased to note that both Mac and PC users are being catered for – The Gmail team is rolling the service out for both. Check out the video below to see video and voice in action.