Get Your Grandmother to Use Gmail Video Chat and Win a VHS Tape (Video)

With all this talk about Google Voice on your desktop or in Gmail, of Skype on the iPhone, of countless other ways communication platforms are blending and merging, it’s easy to forget that, for many, even instant messaging is confusing. For these people, Google has put together a video explaining how voice and video chat works in Gmail. The chat tools in Gmail are actually quite powerful, but many may not know about them or how to make them work, which is where the video and the accompanying guide come in.

“[W]hen I saw that my grandma—who loves keeping in touch with family more than anyone—wasn’t set up to use video chat, I decided to help her get started. While doing so, it occurred to me how many people there must be out there in similar situations. If only there were a simple way that any grandmother could use to get started on her own,” Google’s Jason Toff writes.

“This video, along with a printable guide, can be accessed at google.com/chat/grandma. Feel free to share this link with your grandma—or grandpa—or, well, anyone who wants to video chat to help get them up and running,” he adds.

The video walks through the basics and tries to be as informative as possible without being too technical, but it may be a bit too sparse in info in some cases. Still, for those who have at least some experience with a computer it should prove useful enough.

Along with the video, Google also created a printable guide that may actually prove to be more useful than the video. It goes through the same basic steps but the format should make it easier to follow than a video. If you do manage to get your grandma to use the Gmail video chat, Google is offering a t-shirt, the printed guide and even a VHS of the video below, to the first 100 people to send in screenshots.