Rumors abound that Google is gunning for the Instant Messenger market, dubbed Google Talk. I won’t be surprised if the rumors are true. Google’s market share is so large that they can penetrate just about anything related (sometimes even remotely related) to the internet quite easily.
The bigger question here is how IM users would welcome this new service? There are quite a lot of them already — ICQ, AOL IM, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN. There are also 3rd-party clients (multi-protocol) which supports mulitple sessions of these IMs — Jabber, Trillian, and Gaim are the more prominent ones.
The very first IM I used was ICQ back in the late 1990’s. Then, I moved to YM and MSN, both of which I simultaneously use now. What will make me move to Google Talk or open up a 3rd IM on my task bar? What other new features are we looking for?
We’ll see how this goes when it launches this Thursday (Wednesday in the US) as speculated.
On a related note, Google Sidebar is out and available with Google Desktop. Complete review here by Technoogle.
Update: And so the rumors were true! Full review with screenshots can be found at Download Squad.
P.S.
Add me to your GTalk: abeolandres
P.P.S.
Please add my friend to your Gtalk: teweesa ;)
If Google Talk will seriously implement the Jabber protocol, it will be a revolutionary step in instant messaging. Google Talk will allow gateways to its network and to other networks, independent servers. This will make instant messaging uncentralized, distributed, and open.