- When you log into your Gmail account, you will immediately notice that each of your contacts has a ball icon beside his name. The ball icon is the symbol indicating whether your contact is available, busy, idle or offline.
A grey ball icon means your contact is offline or invisible, while a green ball icon means your contact is available. A red ball icon with a dash in the middle means that your contact is busy, while a yellow ball icon---which looks like a clock---means your contact's Gchat window has been idle for at least 10 minutes. - Once you start chatting with a contact, you will notice that there is a phone icon in the top left of the chat window. This symbol allows you to call the person with whom you are chatting. You will need to install a separate free plug-in from Gmail to start using the phone and video chat options.
- Instead of a ball icon, some of your contacts will have a camera icon beside their names. This symbol means that your contact is using a computer that has a webcam installed. The camera icon also changes in color depending on the status of your contact.
When you initiate a chat conversation with a contact, you will also notice that another camera symbol is available on the window. When you click on this symbol, it will allow you to initiate a video chat with your contact. - The small, generic avatar with a plus sign allows you to add another person to your active chat conversation. As of May 2011, you can only add people in text chat. You will not be able to add people when you're using voice or video chat.
Ball Icons
The Phone Icon
The Camera Icon
The Avatar With a Plus Sign
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