Interesting Point: It supports the Jabber, for as long as you login with a valid gmail account. Man, these guys are slowly taking over EVERYTHING.
They're zerg-rushing our internets.
Gives more a reason to drop my hotmail account and go to gmail. Microsoft's domination of the internet will soon end!
ITT how about we put our gmail addresses in so we can talk together?
It's too bad they haven't enabled interoperation with other servers and services yet, but according to their FAQ they seem to claim they will, at some point in the future.
My gmail address is on http://wakaba.c3.cx/, moderately safe from spambots, but I've not set up my IM client to connect to Google Talk yet. I probably will soon.
>>5
Are you sure they are seriously gonna do interoperation with other IM services? Cos I am pretty sure AOL and Microsoft are not going to stand by idle and allow it to happen.
I mean I was sure with other universal IMs like Trillian, AOL and M$ did put some actions by purposingly blocking etc in the early years but then it seems cos Trillian are not as popular, the big companies seem to just ignore them now.
But if a big company like Google starts doing interoperation with the resources they have and the rising popularity in Gmail, I think AOL and M$ are gonna do something more drastic like legal actions or something. You think?
Well, I only have their admittedly vague word for it:
15. What new features are you working on?
We could tell you, but then you'd have to promise to not talk about it... Joking aside, Google Talk is still in beta, and we're working hard to add features and make improvements. We're just not quite ready yet to reveal the other cool things we've got planned. We can say this, though: we believe strongly in user choice and open standards, and we are committed to letting users access Google Talk using the client and platform of their choice, as well as to enabling our users to talk with users from other service providers.
> open standards
Excellent.
open standardsｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!
Baruch.Spinoza
Unofficial Google Talk FAQ
Q1. What happened to "we only do search"?
A. In case you didn't notice, that philosophy was dead by the time Gmail came out, or even earlier. The new idea at Google is to do cool things, and do them well. Have you seen Keyhole, aka Google Earth? It was so awesome they couldn't pass it up.
Q2. Why a chat client?
A. Google recognizes that its users eagerly await any new cool thing Google might be preparing. People have been talking about a "Google IM" client for years. What's more, the major players in the IM network are distinctly "uncool": AOL, which is known to be deceptive and uncaring about customers, and Microsoft, which is deceptive and uncaring about competitors.
Q3. Why does it have no features?
A. There is the possibility that Google was in a hurry to release their client before ICQ and Gabu-Gabu died entirely, and AIM and MSN took over, and therefore took the precaution of not including any feature that hadn't been thoroughly tested. But this seems a little strange, considering the huge number of testers they must employ.
The more likely reason is that Google is simply minimizing the idea of IM to destroy the "look ma I'm online!" model that's been built up since the AOL days. Many of the "features" of other clients, such as file transfer, graphical emoticons, group browsing, and IMVironments, are about using IM to play on the computer. Google has recognized this as rubbish.
The way Google's About page reads, it sounds like they're purposefully playing dumb and starting over the IM or VoIP metaphors from scratch. "Now you can get in touch with someone instantly without having to reach for the phone. You don't even need to reach for another address book." The Contacts list, in the same way, doesn't work like a regular list where you group contacts to make them easier to find; rather, you type the name and search them, like a phonebook. This slight change to the IM metaphor may or may not be useful when future features are added. I don't see what great Googly things it has in store for us, but maybe I'm missing something.
Q4. Why did they get rid of Jabber's S2S? Such a useful feature!
A. To prevent spam and to promote the use of their own client.
Q5. Why did they get rid of Jabber's offline IM? Such a useful feature!
A. Do you like to call your friends when they're not at home? Google recognized that offline IM goes agains the new metaphor they're building. That's why there's a big, fat "Mail" button in the IM window. Which leads us to...
Q6. Is this supposed to promote Gmail?
A. Well, let's see. You need to make a Gmail account just to sign up, offline messages will go to your Gmail account out of user laziness... Gee whiz, I dunno.
Q7. Isn't that evil?
This might just be a beta thing to attract dedicated users, and S2S and non-Gmail addresses will work later. It's either that, or Google Talk is only for dedicated users.
Q8. What's planned for the future?
I know nothing, feel free to disprove anything I've written here.
Haha
I still think it's a good idea to lure many users with the GOOGLE™ brand into the open standard IM client realm. Jabber hasn't really been catching on that much with Psi and whatnot.
And we'll see what features they'll be adding. As of now, 99% of the IM users still use the major big ones, AIM, MSN, ICQ and that will only change if Google will provide means of opening communication with those clients eventually. In the mean time, yes, it's just about luring in as many EXCITED beta users, such as me, who will spread the word.
/me imagines Sharon Apple singing "Google Talk"..
It's a pity they are becoming a bit of a monopoly on the internet.
It's because they're doing things right.
>>16
and google doesn't go round trying to make quick buck directly from consumers. Unlike the big 3.
I really like it but it lacks:
>>18
All those features are suppose to be coming in the future versions for sure. I think Google just wanted to release what they perceive the main core functions to the beta release.
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000637.html
Is this really a "9 out of 10" prediction?
>>20
Do you mean whether the scenario of AOL/ICQ, MSN and Yahoo going to block out all third-party IM clients would be likely?
No, I don't think so. But the "triumvirate" will have to come up with something, eventually. I figure they'll just try and make their clients "better" than Google's and integrate their functions more with their other services.
>>20
What I don't understand is why does the triumvirate refuse to not want to join GoogleTalk but isntead make their own multi IM?
>>22
They aren't making their own IM, they're "agreeing to disagree", that is, block outside clients (including Google).
The article is based on the assumption that Google Talk will be multiprotocol soon.
Some interesting tipps & tricks for Google Talk:
Copypasted from here:
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-08-24-n57.html
durrrr, somehow intending a tab in a list item won't work... or it screwed up the tab into a single space, I dunno....
To write something bold, you can use an asterisk before and after the word, like this .
To use italics, use an underscore before an after the word, like this .
PS (from the commments section of the link):
If you click in the main chat text and select some text:
ctrl+e = center justify
ctrl+r = right justify
ctrl+j = left justify
ctrl+1 = single space
ctrl+2 = double space
ctrl+5 = 1.5x space
Also, this site has a lot more tweaking tipps:
http://www.customizetalk.com/pages/
And the lack of backslashes burns another poor soul...
Does anyone have a clue where GoogleTalk saves the chat histories?
GoogleGuy's had a little to say about Talk:
"I'm glad that it's out available for people to start playing with, and that it's using Jabber so it's open. If you didn't see lovehealthsuccess's post, http://www.google.com/talk/about.html talks a little about the future (see esp. the stuff at the bottom of that page). "
This is entirely useless information, of course. All it means is that Google considers the about page enough of an explanation for someone who wants one.
>>31
Useful stuff here:
http://www.customizetalk.com/pages/index.php?page=downloads
I just discovered the blogs of several Google Talk developers. These developers have been happy to talk about their project and plans. For some reason, they have been mainly ignored and people have been in confusion about S2S and so forth on Slashdot.
http://www.eightypercent.net/ <-- most interesting
http://www.glaak.com/
http://www.brightlycoloredfood.com/
http://www.rezab.com/
kopipe:
Without avatar/picture, emoticons... and Google Talk itself can't be used as a generic Jabber client... sigh still quite lame, only a hardcore fan like me can get excited.
choonkeat | Email | Homepage | 08.23.05 - 10:46 pm | #
Choonkeat -- totally understand your concerns. We are starting simple and building up. We wanted to build a usable service with the most important features and get that out there first.
As for emoticons -- sure we support them. Just type :) in a window and see that it is bolded. We know about emoticons ;)
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.23.05 - 11:13 pm | #
I am happy to see Google Talk around there.
But really, I don't understand why Google Talk does not communicate with other servers. This is a basic functionality, so it feels like Google blocked it deliberately.
If a user @gmail.com can not communicate with a user @jabber.org (at least sending IM), how can you make IM as open as email?
b-dash | Email | Homepage | 08.24.05 - 1:39 am | #
Hi b-dash,
You bring up a very good point. Personally, I wish that we could do open federation right away.
Here are some reasons off of the top of my head why we might be moving slow here (There may be more reasons and some of these may not resonate with some of my fellow team members):
1) We haven't written the code on our server to do so yet. We've been spending our time getting ready to handle lots and lots of users.
2) We need to continue to develop comprehensive abuse/spam countermeasures. We want to make sure we have a handle on this on our own network before we introduce more variables.
3) We want to find a way to ensure a fully connected network. If we federate with both A and B, we also want A and B to federate with each other. We need to work to make this happen.
Personally I think that the ultimate destination is to come up with a system that is as distributed and decentralized as SMTP/email while not falling prey to the spam problems that SMTP has. We are going to test those waters first off by starting federation with a few partners and then moving on from there.
I hope this answers some of your questions.
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.24.05 - 1:59 am | #
Heh -- this isn't an ambition for Google Talk, but rather an ambition for all users to be able to talk outside of the walled gardens they are in now. The idea isn't anything super new either. The Jabber/XMPP guys have been working toward this goal for a long time now.
I would fully expect in this mythical super distributed world that Googles IM service would be a fraction of the total pie. But the pie itself will be so much more interesting and valuable to everyone.
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.24.05 - 7:39 am | #
CONTINUED
As I downloaded and installed Google Talk mere seconds after its release last night, I thought maybe, just maybe, since it was such a small file, that it would run on my HP Pocket PC. But, to no avail. Is there any chance that you guys could release a Windows CE/Windows Pocket 2003 version of Google Talk? There are few options when it comes to IM-ing on the Pocket PC, and this would be a great one.
Seth
Seth | Email | Homepage | 08.24.05 - 7:57 am | #
Hey Seth,
Good idea! We'd love to run on any platform out there. If you don't want to wait for us to do something like that feel free to get started by write your own client ;)
How important is voice in that application do you think? Or do you just want text chat?
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.24.05 - 8:23 am | #
Hi Dan,
We have lots of ideas for future features. We are going through the process of prioritizing them now and figuring out what we are going to do next.
We have a pretty small team and the goal to keep the client as simple to use as possible. That means that the bar for new features is pretty high. Because of this I'm hesistant to promise anything. I'm sure you understand.
I can tell you that I'm a huge fan of doing SMS interop and file transfer. For file transfer in particular, I think that there is real room to innovate above and beyond the "here is a file" model that a lot of the current IM clients have.
Thanks for the encouraging words!
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.25.05 - 8:26 am | #
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your enthusiasm. I'm glad that our effort at simplicity is being appreciated. While I can't promise that we'll never have graphical or animated smileys (there are a lot of people on either side of that issue) I can promise you that we'll try hard not to loose the clean and simple look (and interaction) that we worked hard on for this first release.
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.25.05 - 1:24 pm | #
Hey Step,
I really don't have anything concrete to tell you wrt Hello. Sorry, but there just isn't anything to say yet.
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.25.05 - 9:12 pm | #
Joe,
Gtalk is brilliantly simple. You guys really made the ultra simple chat client.
Here are my suggestions right now:
1) Notifications of a message popup on a window occurs when the same conversation window is still open.
2) The add a friend button I think is not bold enough.
3) When you add a user, a request comes up on the gmail client. I think you guys should take to the other way, or at least put an option for having a request popup instead of appear on the window. It took me some time to find it after a friend added me.
4) The little balloon icon on the taskbar looks nice; however, I think a nice touch could be (again this is just a suggestion) to have the number of new emails in your gmail inbox show on the balloon.
5) I love how you have no text limit (yet), perhaps though a nice add on could be if a user tries to send a huge message, a request can go to the other user asking if the user would like to receive a large text message.
6) "Check for updates" seems to be not working... I click it and no notification comes up on my screen.
7) You should probably have the ability to delete recent away messages (Perhaps a right click).
A real big suggestion: allow offline messages for people to receive once they log back on. It's a huge feature that will really help gtalk.
9) A suggestion: Create some "bots" for google talk that can give people customer support. Or you can have these bots do functions for users like send emails quickly, check weather, scores, google searches, ect... Sort of like SmarterChild on AIM.
Again these are my bug finds and suggestions, I'm already in love with gtalk.
In 50 years when this program reaches pinnical, I can be like an old grandpa saying, "Back in the day, I remember when google talk just started... I was one of the first to use google talk "
All you guys need now is a google bible.
Excellent work to Joe and his team,
-Danny
Danny Miller | Email | Homepage | 08.26.05 - 4:35 am | #
Danny --
Great suggestions!
Let me go through them one by one.
1) The code currently will pop up the notifications if the chat window doesn't have focus and any part of Google Talk is obscured by another window. The reasoning is that the you may not be able to see the chat window (or perhaps the task bar) and we wanted to draw your attention to the new chat. What do you think?
2) Gotcha -- we didn't want that to take too much space, but you may be right that it needs to be more obvious.
3) Ah -- I see -- you want a notification (we call them toast since they pop up like toast out of a toaster) to show up when you get invited. Good idea.
4) It has been requested to at least show a different icon when you have new mail. The gmail notifier did this and we didn't have time to get everything togther. There is also a bug right now where we don't notice when the you've read mail and take the count down. I want to fix that (requires some server work too) before I start using the unread count for more stuff. BTW, the old gmail notifier used to poll the server while the new notification code in Google Talk waits for the server to tell it when there is new mail. The idea is that it will be more accurate and load the servers less.
5) There is a text limit I think -- it is just really really big Good idea about asking. We're going to have to see how much of a problem something like this is.
6) Check for updates won't say anything if there is no update. Good idea that we should tell you about this! If there were an update available, it would immediately install it for you.
7) yup -- good idea. Better management of that list would be good.
Another good idea. We have lots of ideas here but didn't have time to finish it up for this release. We want to really think through all the scenarios and make it feel seamless.
9) Another good idea! If you are a programmer type, you can play around with writing your own bot. Right now there is a limit to how many people you can have on your roster (~2k, I think) that can limit how useful a bot can be. We have to think about how other people can write bots.
Thanks for all your enthusiasm! While it is clear that we have our work cut out for us, I'm glad you appreciate what we've done so far.
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.26.05 - 7:23 am | #
Hi Mariano,
We don't use HTTP for the chat connection. Instead we open up a persistent connection. We try to use the standard Jabber port (5222) first. If that doesn't work we have some other tricks to try and get the connection set up.
As for the conference calls and chat rooms, we want to do a bunch of stuff but we aren't ready to promise anything yet.
As for "personal use" I'm not a lawyer, but I'm assuming it is okay to use it to talk to coworders. I wouldn't sweat that.
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.26.05 - 11:40 am | #
PickledMonkey,
Thanks for the great suggestions and the enthusiasm. These are all great ideas.
Right now we are sorting through the feature suggestions and prioritizing what makes sense for us to do next. Please be patient with us as we are still in Beta :)
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 08.29.05 - 3:05 pm | #
Hi Javier,
We haven't released the code for our client so we aren't open source in that respect.
However, we do allow others to connect to our service and are working toward open federation of our network.
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 09.05.05 - 3:50 pm | #
>>33-37
Thanks, guys! This is interesting stuff.
Is this thing cool useful yet?
It's undocumented, dammit!
Whoops I knew that!
Exclusive chat with GTalk developers:
http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=15995
[09/28/2005] 9:10 rod: we became convinced that IM was not the end-all-be-all for RTC
[09/28/2005] 9:10 rod: it was just the first killer-app
[09/28/2005] 9:11 rod: looking at the space
[09/28/2005] 9:11 rod: and the big-3 in it
[09/28/2005] 9:11 rod: yahoo, ms, aol
[09/28/2005] 9:11 rod: it felt to us just like online-apps did in the 93/94 timeframe
[09/28/2005] 9:12 rod: lots of walled-garden apps
[09/28/2005] 9:12 rod: but hard to innovate in
[09/28/2005] 9:12 rod: we felt that creating the 4th network wasn't too interestin
[09/28/2005] 9:12 rod: instead, helping to create the last-network
[09/28/2005] 9:13 rod: open, like what http/html did to online apps
[09/28/2005] 9:13 rod: would be a lot more interesting
[09/28/2005] 9:13 rod: so, i see a lot of comments on s2s
[09/28/2005] 9:13 rod: so let me address that right now
[09/28/2005] 9:13 rod: Google WILL support federation
[09/28/2005] 9:13 rod: the only reason we don't support this now
[09/28/2005] 9:14 rod: is that we weren't ready yet
[09/28/2005] 9:20 matt: so a couple of people have asked questions in relation to "noisy" clients -- any plan to add
advertising (although I understand that you can't go into details about upcoming changes in the service)
[09/28/2005] 9:20 rod: we've talked about it
[09/28/2005] 9:20 rod: but at this point we can't find a way to make ads in the chat client a "value add"
[09/28/2005] 9:21 matt: right, that makes sense
[09/28/2005] 9:21 rod: i think that ads in search, and the ads we put into Gmail, are a value-add
[09/28/2005] 9:21 rod: they aren't intrusive, and they can help you find what you're looking for/interested in
[09/28/2005] 9:21 rod: it's a lot tougher to see how to do the same in a chat client
Not a peep out of Google in over a month, so I gave the head developer a little nudge. EXCLUSIVE 4-CH SCOOP: Google is still working on Talk :)
Well, it's been over a month since you got back to work... where's the S2S?
Masked and Anonymous | Email | Homepage | 11.18.05 - 5:17 pm | #
Hey Masked,
Stay tuned! We're working hard on it.
Joe
Joe Beda | Email | Homepage | 11.18.05 - 5:36 pm | #
lately whenever i try to send someone a message on google talk, i get the response Your message could not be delivered: "...", Reason: ""...
It's cool that Google Talk is now compatible with Jabber. Unfortunately, nobody uses Google Talk. Seriously-- does anyone use the thing?
google talk is the only IM client i use most of the time
wasn't google talk always compatible with jabber?
or do you mean it can connect to other servers now?
I use bitlbee because I already have irsii open anyways
CuteAwesome!