Google Talk.

[Reality]

Google sure has come a long way since it was just a search engine. At the beginning they providied us with on of the best search engines on the planet, then came gmail (which is still in beta? ), and now they have google talk.

I found about this from a friend of mine. Apparently is a free calling/voice chat IM. OS X and Linux don't have versions you can Dl but to my surprise you can make a account in Adium, iChat, ect. For kicks, a created one and am logged in with it, but I'm curious if the call feature will work with friends. I doubt it, but it be kinda cool instead of opening Skype all the time. At any rate, its neat to see Google branching out and providing spiffy things like this.

 

[Mikuro]

Does this offer any advantage over AIM? You've been able to do voice/video chats with AIM for years now. It's not like Google to just rehash an old idea unless they're doing it a lot better (before Gmail, I considered web-based mail to be a joke), but does AIM really need any improvement?

And if iChat supports their protocol, how come it doesn't support voice chat?

Personally, I think this particular market is already far too fragmented. I'm not happy to see another player, because it's just going to make talking with my friends harder.

 

[Satcomer]

Mac OSX Hints just had a hints about GMail, Jabber today.

 

[fryke]

I agree. Too many players. I really hope we'll see more convergence over the years, but I guess that will hardly happen. Microsoft give in? Nah. And AIM/ICQ has more than enough users to stay on their path. And Jabber will continue, anyway, too. Google Talk is using kind of the feature set of Jabber - but not in its entirety as far as I've heard, hence some things are not entirely compatible.

Me: I've stopped caring. I only use my AIM screenname ever since I've switched to iChat and have managed to add my ICQ contacts there. All I miss nowadays is invisibility. And no, I don't want to hear that some alternative client would offer me that: I want iChat to support that feature, period. (Yes, but Adium/Fire/... ... Nah!)