When online chatting became popular way back in the days of ICQ, it was a joy to be able to do the simplest things like send a file online to a friend. Now, a whole new breed of chat applications have proliferated, and there are quite a few good ones too. I have been using Skype for quite a while now for free calls outside the country along with Yahoo Messenger for chat, but it wasn’t until today that I found out about ooVoo!

ooVoo is a free, standalone desktop chat application that has both text and video chat capabilities. It can handle as many as six people in one video conference as well as a dozen in the integrated voice chat conference. Users can drop in and out of conversations, and the video windows will scale automatically.

ooVoo also doubles as a video e-mail service where users can send each other video messages as long as a minute in length that are available right in the application or via e-mail. Users who get the e-mail are also provided a link that takes them to a live Flash version of the video, so they can access it while away from their home computer.  Isn’t that cool?

I went to the site and tried this out and called a few of my buddies from the US and it was crystal clear. The GUI is also a sight to behold (above) as most chat applications have really ugly interfaces. This one is quite different in terms of look and feel, and I’m surprised to have just heard about ooVoo today.

Click HERE to get to the download page, it is available for both PC and MAC users