The world seems to be addicted to this new 140 character form of communication. Sure Short Messaging Service (SMS) has been around for well over a decade now, but it wasn't put to such a wide use until a couple of years ago.

Almost every Web 2.0 service now has some sort of SMS flavor incorporated in them. And Gmail isn't far behind the rest of pack.

SMS communication was already possible through a number of social networks including Twitter and Facebook. You can even send SMS from Yahoo! Mail or Windows Live Messenger. Now Google has also come up with its own SMS utility, that lets you send email as an SMS.

The new Gmail Labs feature scheduled to be released soon would allow you to send messages as texts if your friends are not on their computers. They can even reply back to you via the SMS carrier but its unclear at the moment if it would involve sending SMS to international numbers.

The feature was released and then subsequently pulled out due to some bugs that were discovered latter. The Gmail team promises to re-release the labs project within two weeks after the bugs have been resolved. It is safe to assume that it would be one of the most anticipated lab features of all time, because there are a lot text fanatics out there including me. I usually send 4000 to 5000 SMS per month, but if this process involves sending messages with international SMS rates then I would like to pass. It would be a lot cheaper to just get your email pushed to you on your handset with standard packet data services.