Member Avatar for Danny

As accurately predicted by several major news organizations yesterday, Google has not surprisingly unveiled “Google Talk, a voice and text instant messaging service. It’s a move that’s going to slowly and painfully drive a knife into the backs of industry rivals Yahoo and Microsoft.

Here’s how it all went down: Last night, the LA Times, among others, reported that Google was believed to be releasing a VOIP-like “talk service. Geeks and Nerds alike held celebration parties all around the country, and the mood was set.

Then, at 8:10 central standard time this morning, it hit. A message was sent out to the Google press group headlined, “Google Launches Open, Instant Communications Service. It had happened, and the world was in for some “corporatation-vs-corporaiton fireworks.

Back to the present: The press announcement outlines a new product loaded with features. Firstly, the application is completely integrated with “Google accounts, which if use Gmail, AdSense, AdWords, or other programs, you have. (My login to Google Talk is my Gmail account name.)

Anybody can download the product, but only registered Google account holders can use it. The interface is almost identical to any IM client, minus the advertisements and clutter, in traditional Google style.

A buddy list is present (painfully empty for me), as well as a link to my Gmail inbox. Since I’m not exactly a social butterfly, and don’t have any contacts, I’m not able to test out the voice communication feature. However, my assumption is that its identical to the system used by AIM, MSN, etc.

I truly look forward to seeing where this program takes Google. If I had to put my money on a route today, I’d bet that Google Talk will be integrated with Google Desktop 2, which will be integrated with Picasa and Blogger. It’s all going to remind of us of the failed “Passport program Microsoft is struggling with, minus all the clutter and confusion.

Its also going to be interesting to see what else Google has in store for us this week. In only two days, the company has already completely reshaped the IT community’s perspective of the company. ‘Tis amazing.

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A short, factual postscript to what people were reacting to in 2005: Google Talk did more than ship a tidy IM/VoIP client — it pushed open-protocol experimentations (XMPP and Jingle/libjingle) into the mainstream, but it did not become a permanent, open replacement for the big IM networks. captured the buzz; ’s market-skeptic instincts were largely right; and ’s worry about commercial pressures foreshadowed later tradeoffs. Google’s announcement (Aug 2005) (googleblog.blogspot.com)

Key milestones that matter for anyone reading this thread now: Google published the voice negotiation library (libjingle/Jingle) the same year, making peer-to-peer voice interoperable in principle. That openness helped other clients interoperate early on. Google Talk blog, Dec 2005 (googletalk.blogspot.com)

Strategy shift and consequence: Google replaced Talk with Hangouts in 2013 and deliberately moved away from the XMPP federation model that made third‑party integration straightforward. That pivot removed the easy federation path and pushed users toward Google’s own ecosystem. Inside Hangouts (The Verge, May 2013) (theverge.com)

Practical takeaways: open protocols can accelerate adoption and experimentation, but they aren’t a guarantee of long-term portability when a vendor changes strategy. For developers or admins looking back from today, bundle fallbacks, export and archive user data, and avoid building critical workflows that depend on a single hosted client remaining unchanged — history shows those products can be rebranded, merged, or retired. Final shutdown/phase-out timelines and the messy migration to Hangouts/Chat are documented in retrospective coverage. (arstechnica.com)

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Member Avatar for benna

I broke down and downloaded google talk and google desktop last night out of curiousity. I believe I downloaded it hours before 8:10am CDT. You are right, when Google Desktop is in sidebar mode, Google Talk integrates with it.

Honestly though I don't really see this going anywhere. Google Talk offers nothing new. It is not at all inovative. Compare this with Gmail, which is quite different in its interface from the other web based email services. Just about everyone uses AIM, and those that don't use MSN, mostly because it comes with Windows. The market is saturated.

I really think Google is wrong to try to compete directly with Microsoft's online devision. Google should concentrate on what it does well, search, advertising, and things that relate to the two. Google Talk will go nowhere.

Member Avatar for jwenting

I'd not be surprised if you're going to see a next version of Google talk (and desktop) that integrate advertising.
Once they're used be a lot of people, those can be silently pushed into peoples' computers.
Write an IM, and the other side gets relevant ads to go with it as part of the message.
Voice recognition software can do the same for voice messages.
Search for something on your PC using Google desktop and get ads for related stuff intertwined with the search results (or instead of the search results if they're 'low priority'.

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