Gmail now offers the possibility for its users to chat with their AIM buddies from inside the web interface.

Since February 2006, when Google integrated real-time chat into the Gmail email service, it has proved that combining a chat application with a web mail service was a pretty good idea. For the first time user of Gmail web mail application were able to chat in real time with other users of the service and also keep history of chats and emails together in conversation threads.

However, Google’s chat service is not one of the most popular out there so Google has decided to make a move to improve the number of users using its chat system. The expected move came as Google partnered with AOL and now Gmail users can chat with their AIM buddies from within the Gmail interface.

The features the already existed for Gmail chat, such as chat history and automatic sorting of buddies based on frequency of communication, work seamlessly across both Google and AIM buddies.