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Google Talk Instant Messaging Released

     - Wednesday, August 24, 2005

It feels like the entire world has changed today! Google has finally released it's long awaited Instant Messaging client. Of course you'll need a Gmail account to use it, but hopefully that's already taken care of.

Google's client is Windows only, sorry mac and linux fans. But the good news is that the Google Talk service does include Jabber/XMPP support, so you can use a number of clients that do have mac and linux versions, including Adium, GAIM, iChat, PSI, and Trillian Pro.

Only the Google client supports the voice call feature. The call quality is amazing. Clearly the programmers spent much of their time on this features.

The client is clean and easy to use. As a beta release, it's missing many of the standard IM features expected by current IM users, including emoticons, display picture or icon, and the ability to transfer files. I'm sure many of the these features are currently in development, so look for them in future releases.

While I'm a big fan of all things google, and certainly pleased they've released an IM client, I've got to be honest and say that I think this release is underwhelming. I'd wished they had released something that was a little more robust to help make a splash into the market, but can certainly understand the release of an early stable stripped down version.

posted by Kevin Watts |  Permalink |