Now you can catch your friends on the go whether they are online or not . New Gmail Labs experimental feature allows you to chat with your friends on the go by sending messages to their mobile phones via SMS.

This service is currently available for US mobile phones only i.e. you can chat with your US friends via SMS anywhere from the world.

To enable this feature, look out for Text Messaging(SMS) in chat under Labs in Settings panel of Gmail. Once you enable it, you can start typing mobile number of your friend in search box in Gmail Chat window and then select ‘Send SMS’.

Then it’ll ask for contact name and once you enter it, you’ll be able to SMS your friends on the go.

On receiving end, the messages will come from a number of 406 area code and receiver can simply reply to the message to start the conversation.

And if you don’t want SMS chat messages from a particular contact, simply reply with BLOCK to the text message you receive or you can entirely disable SMS chat for your mobile number by replying with STOP.