Google Talk
The other release by Google last week was Google Talk. Their much speculated IM application.
I have not tried this personally, so can't comment directly on the software, but judging by the initial reviews, if they were hoping to take the market by storm like they did with GMail they may not make it!
The difference with Google Talk compared to GMail is that they are not offering anything new or different to what's already available (just plain IM and VoIP), and by the looks of it they missed out some basic things (no emoticons for example).
They are making a big thing about using an open standard, unlike MSN for example, which is a step in the right direction, but you cant use the talk features with anything but their own client, and according to this Slashdot post they are not being completely open.
I think everyone would agree that the IM space needs to be sorted out! Why should I have to sign up to multiple accounts just to talk to people on different networks? Why don't file transfers just work? etc. However, by the looks of it so far, Google don't want to be the people to sort it out!
From discussions at work, I think the real interest with Google Talk is in what they do with it.
Will they add tailored adverts based ion your IM chats? How about processing your VoIP calls to give tailored adverts? Would people be OK with that? Probably not unless you got something in return.
What about free calls to standard phone numbers, paid for by targeted adverts from your conversations? That would give people an interesting dilemma...
I have not tried this personally, so can't comment directly on the software, but judging by the initial reviews, if they were hoping to take the market by storm like they did with GMail they may not make it!
The difference with Google Talk compared to GMail is that they are not offering anything new or different to what's already available (just plain IM and VoIP), and by the looks of it they missed out some basic things (no emoticons for example).
They are making a big thing about using an open standard, unlike MSN for example, which is a step in the right direction, but you cant use the talk features with anything but their own client, and according to this Slashdot post they are not being completely open.
I think everyone would agree that the IM space needs to be sorted out! Why should I have to sign up to multiple accounts just to talk to people on different networks? Why don't file transfers just work? etc. However, by the looks of it so far, Google don't want to be the people to sort it out!
From discussions at work, I think the real interest with Google Talk is in what they do with it.
Will they add tailored adverts based ion your IM chats? How about processing your VoIP calls to give tailored adverts? Would people be OK with that? Probably not unless you got something in return.
What about free calls to standard phone numbers, paid for by targeted adverts from your conversations? That would give people an interesting dilemma...
posted by Gezz at
6:47 pm
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