Say Hello to Google Talk™

no voice chat available for mac users. doesn't make it more different than messenger, icq, ichat etc etc. well, except for the google brand..

Google will snare a few but they've arrived pretty late to the party.

too little too late IMO its just yet another IM client for winblows

skype's way better

I think you're totally underestimating this. First off it's Google. Secondly their standard is completely open whereas MSN, AIM, etc are not. Google has published their standards for text and voice chat meaning it's only a short matter of time until Adium or even iChat could support voice chat.

If you actually bother to read through Google's developers section you'll see they want other software developers to build in their protocols and are completely willing to help them. Personally I think the Google Talk software is secondary to them. They're providing a service, not the software in the end.

I think you'll see a lot of independent developers jumping on this and I could also see Apple jumping ship from AOL eventually once Google is completely AV and not just voice. Who doesn't love open standards?

I also believe that GT is going to go big. This is very smart marketing by Google. With instituting 50 invites / gmail account now you can basically invite all your friends to Gmail and use GT. I wouldn't be surprised that within the year voice and video chat are open for cross platform chatting. "MSN was killed by the GoogleTalk" to borrow the old song

Absolutely! This is huge, do not underestimate this.. I know none of the big companies are.. this is huge.

Well MSN did realize whats happening, cause they just released MSN 7.5 for PC's. But really...that won't stop the switch from crap MSN software to easy to use no spyware Google software.

This is great news.... This oughta give MSN a huge kick in the pants and I'm sure AOL is more than a little nervous as well. I love the fact that MS' slogan is "Where do you want to go today?" and the overwhelming response anymore is "google.com!"

Here is the way I see it... everybody has aim/aol and it will be hard for google to change over because that would mean everybody would have to do so for them to talk to their friends, co-workers, and family. I believe that if this is going to be big that they have to include aol not try to bring them down and have a complete switch over to google talk.

PowerBookG4 said:

Here is the way I see it... everybody has aim/aol and it will be hard for google to change over because that would mean everybody would have to do so for them to talk to their friends, co-workers, and family. I believe that if this is going to be big that they have to include aol not try to bring them down and have a complete switch over to google talk.

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I agree with that. I don't chat with a single person who has anything other than an AIM account. I've never actually met anyone in person who uses MSN, although I know people do.

rs2sensen said:

I agree with that. I don't chat with a single person who has anything other than an AIM account. I've never actually met anyone in person who uses MSN, although I know people do.

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Actually I have been quite surprised how many of my friends and co-workers are on MSN.. or even Yahoo messanger.

i hear msn is big in europe

yea im in the uk and dont know anyone with a AIM account and even though yahoo is miles better than msn people still insist on using it

AIM is big in the US. ICQ used to be pretty popular but I think just too much spam and a degrade in the usability/quality of the software has driven people away. All the people that I know that use MSN or Yahoo, also use AIM.

I installed it, it replaced my Gmail notifier program basically since I don't know anyone that uses this service yet. GTalkname: Michaelallenclark if someone wants to message me so I can try it out.

mynameis said:

AIM is big in the US. ICQ used to be pretty popular but I think just too much spam and a degrade in the usability/quality of the software has driven people away. All the people that I know that use MSN or Yahoo, also use AIM.

I installed it, it replaced my Gmail notifier program basically since I don't know anyone that uses this service yet. GTalkname: Michaelallenclark if someone wants to message me so I can try it out.

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I guess we all know what "yournameis" now

misskool said:

no voice chat available for mac users. doesn't make it more different than messenger, icq, ichat etc etc. well, except for the google brand..

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I have to agree with this!
People are mostly on PC, so using msn messenger is not a question for them. As a Mac user, I want to talk to them and use my webcam, so I use Mercury. Why should I change to Gtalk??

When Gtalk will have something that Mac users will be able to use videoconferencing (voice/webcam) or only voice, I'll concider using it. For now I think that Google miss the boat..they should have done something that will be the same thing on Mac, Linux and Pc. This way, they would have knockout msn messenger! it's just another PC thing for me... but let's wait!

yeah google made a mistake with only making it a pc thing for now, esspecially since they were having problems with microsoft so you would think that they would have made it equal for all platforms or maybe even put out a mac edition better then the windows edition

Gtalk is pretty good
But google didnt miss the boat
The thing with google is they dont want to wait a long time to release a complete and perfect product, then all that is left to do is fix it up
They make something small and perfect, then they add to it
It is stated on the gtalk website they are working with other clients and services so that it can work with everything
They also said they will have Mac and Linux versions soon
And they are definently going to have Audio confrencing, video, file transfer, picture messaging (dont they have something called "hello" that is intergrated with picassa 2) as well as gaming, and blogger support.

I think they want Gtalk to be more of a Software, than a service

Soon youll be able to communicate to anybody with an IM client using an AV tool of quality
And this is only the obviuos, who knows what else is instored

im sure they will get a way to call Cells and land lines for a small fee or even for free

As for clients

I use gtalk, aim is my main one
But i like yahoo the best (although no one i know uses it)

MSN (microsft, dare i say more) isnt my cup of tea
ICQ (never used it) is pointless for me

To sum up
Its like gmail
it started out pretty simple
then they more than doubled the storage, and its always growing
and they added a bunch of features
and in my opinion it is the best email service ive ever used (and ive used plenty)

as for google trying to take over the market, i dont agree with that
googles philosohpy is "do no evil" they are fair players, they got to the top of the search world in a clean matter, all you need to do is have faith in gtalk

peace