August 24th, 2005
What's exciting about Google Talk?
I’m a bit underwhelmed with the launch of Google Talk, which is a bit of a surprise, since Google has a history of coming up with decent services. I use Google Search dozens of times every day, and check Google News every hour or so when I’m at the computer. (More if I’m procrastinating… thanks Google…) Gmail is the only Webmail service I can stand using for actual mail (as opposed to catching spam. Any Webmail account will do nicely for that) and I’ve even taken a shine to the Google Toolbar for Firefox.
In short, I’ve been pretty happy with new stuff from Google. Google Talk, however, doesn’t really seem to bring anything new to the table. Instant messaging, even with voice, isn’t really new or exciting. I do like Google’s stated philosophy of "open communications" — but Google is basically just leveraging the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) created by Jabber way back in 1999. I’ve been using Jabber for quite some time now, and since Google’s IM client is Windows-only, Google Talk is basically just another Jabber server for users on Linux, Mac OS X, BSDs and other OSes.
So, I’m curious — is anyone out there excited about Google Talk or is this just another ho-hum IM service?
