Going by a Wall Street Journal report, Google will soon introduce an add-on widget for Gmail users, enhancing the ways in which they can keep in touch with their friends, similar to Twitter and Facebook.

As per a source ‘in the know,’ the new widget will show quick status updates via the Chat route; thereby facilitating a more vivacious to-and-for communication between friends - allowing them to view as well as post messages about their day-to-day activities.

The new add-on to Gmail, which already provides its users facilities like chatting via Jabber or AIM; making video calls; and sending SMS messages from Gmail’s web interface, will now allow the Google email service not only the first stop online for most users, but also their default place for sending and receiving messages.

As such, with the introduction of the new add-on Gmail feature, Google is essentially aiming at further revolutionizing its popular online e-mail – and virtually transforming it into an all-encompassing ‘communications hub.’

About the forthcoming Google add-on, the Post said: “Google has been trying to fashion Gmail into more than an e-mail service for years. The service currently lets users set an “away message,” which can be a link to a Web page, that their friends see when they instant-message them. Now, it plans to launch a new interface that will aggregate updates from more friends in a stream.”