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Google Launches Google Talk

by David Ross on 24 August 2005, 00:00

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Worst Kept Secret this week....

This week it has been speculated that Google would launch Google Talk, and sure enough today they have - it is available over here.

More on this as we find it, but its another step towards Google domination of your PC.

Update

By Steve Kerrison

So Google makes a somewhat late, but rather hyped entry into both the instant messaging and VoIP scene. I woke up this morning to the news and scrambled to get my hands on it, only to find that a GMail account was required - Something I decided that I didn't need, until now.

Thanks to the various people who sent invites, within minutes I had a GMail account and Google Talk up and running. Alas, I have no headset to make use of the VoIP style services, nor any friends on my contact list (is that because they don't have Google Talk yet, or because I have no friends?)

So, having battled with my social issues I found somebody with which to try out the text based chatting. My first thoughts are that in its current state, Google Talk is very minimalist. Is that a bad thing? Well, I'm not seeing the appeal of Google Talk right now, but it could do well to not become as feature loaded and kid-oriented as the likes of MSN messenger.

Google Talk!

Running on Jabber, Google Talk boast interoperability with various programs, but that doesn't include MSN or Yahoo!, which might be a problem, as people aren't going to want to move away from what they're used to.

I expect we'll see plenty more talk about Google Talk in the days to come.

HEXUS Forums :: 15 Comments

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Posted by Swafe - Wed 24 Aug 2005 12:38
What I think? Monopolistic !

You know google will give a good service tho :)
Posted by ajbrun - Wed 24 Aug 2005 13:09
Problem is though that no one has it, so I'd probably only change if everyone changes, and that unlikely to happen imo. Although if SOME people decide to change I'm sure I could always use a multi-network client thingey instead…
Posted by rc55 - Wed 24 Aug 2005 13:23
I've had a quick play… it's a very simple client indeed, but is severely lacking in features. It doesn't even have smilies! A large portion of Yahoo and MSN Messenger users use the personable aspects of the interfaces, such as smileys, themes and the MSN Spaces thing - Google will have to pull their socks up quick with this, it's more like a technology demonstration rather than a full blown client.

It needs robust file transfer, encryption, smilies, video support (h.264 would be fantastic - like iChat), a plugin system would be good (something with the ease of use of Mozilla Extensions would be great), an MSI package for enterprise deployment, Skype like VoIP facilities… the list goes on. It's interesting to see a new instant messenger but where's the google boom factor?

You could argue that it's beta but Google News has been beta for years now, so hopefully they'll elegantly add the features most people require, or at least have a system to easily plug-in more feature. I think the current client would be great as a skeleton (except better encryption should be added) with a extensions service online.

One other big issue is the complete lack of interoperability with other networks - I hope it picks up, but there's not enough compelling reason to do so, with the average user being ignorant to client-server / single-vendor politics.

Another is people in general don't understand how Jabber works and how Google is limiting the trust relationships it has with other Jabber servers to limit instant messenger spam. I suppose this is good to an extent, but it does lock out smaller servers (imagine only having a limited choice of who provides your e-mail service?).

It's a reasonable start, but I really hope it gets a lot better quickly. They're getting a lot of press for something that is really too basic.

Ruairi
Posted by directhex - Wed 24 Aug 2005 13:30
it's worth pointing out that whilst google talk itself might lack some interoperability features, many Jabber servers have them - so by using a different Jabber client with a suitably enabled server, you can talk to people on Talk, or MSN, Yahoo, whatever.

look for gold stars in the columns of your choice at http://www.jabber.org/network/
Posted by Xenctuary - Wed 24 Aug 2005 13:30
Wow, Google really is expanding a lot faster than I thought. From such a simple idea they are gaining a monopoly of the web.

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