2005-08-23 #1

Google IM?

8/23/2005 13:50

~> telnet talk.google.com 5222
Trying 64.233.167.125…
Connected to talk.l.google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
<stream:stream to='talk.google.com' xmlns='jabber:client' xmlns:stream='http://etherx.jabber.org/streams'>    # input
<stream:stream from="gmail.com" id="E454FCC0" xmlns:stream="http://etherx.jabber.org/streams" xmlns="jabber:client"> # output
Connection closed by foreign host.
~>

Disclaimer: This is all only rumour.

Assuming they are running jabber, they could be the gateway to all the other IM servers on the planet. You wouldn't need trillian or miranda, just an account to google IM. this is a killer feature for Joe-6-pack which is still running 6 different clients.

On the other hand, this might be the server through which all the google employees are connecting to the outside world. Neh, too simple, and it wouldn't need its own subhost.

And for the client they can use Hello which they got from Picasa. Hello has a killer feature, perfect integration with Picasa. It has a new way of sending files (pictures) which makes it really fun. It puts them in some sort of common area, next to the conversation window. The next one to upload a picture replaces the one in the common area. It's like a conversation around photos; like you would talk to somebody over a cup of coffee showing pictures.

Another explanation from the conspiracy theorists out there. Because of this rumour, shares of google rose a bit on Tuesday. A bit means 0.7 billion. If I were to own a lot of shares of google and I would have a … let's say blog… on which I leak google info once in a while :) Neh again, do no evil and this doesn't make sense. Also, if you don't own a lot of stock, all this fuss for a 1% increase is not worth the effort.

WE LIKE !!! WE WANT !!! :)

8/23/2005 14:00

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=159825&cid=13379381

Very strange. Are they launching their own buzz?

Dunaway said the "buzz team" spends almost as much time on internal events as external ones, with holiday parties and promotions. When it launches a new product, it often brings the ad campaign inside. For example, the company wrapped the elevators to celebrate the launch of its small business center. When Yahoo! kicked off a huge ad campaign for its redesigned search, it mirrored the external ads internally. External advertising featured people holding five-foot-long search bars showing their personal search needs. Internally, the buzz team made posters of Yahoo! staffers holding cardboard bars with their own unique quests. Internet.com

8/23/2005 14:23

This one is also a good article: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=2109

It sais that google uses this to create buzz around another service that they will launch tomorrow.

8/23/2005 14:32 rumour broke into cnn too

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/23/google.messaging.reut/

If this is a hoax it'll be funny to see the same websites tomorrow.

8/24/2005 9:24

The service is indeed here. It is called google talk and it is indeed based on jabber. It allows any jabber client to connect to their servers and talk to each other. This comment on slashdot puts it nicely:

In my opinion, using jabber in a mainstream IM client (ie, one that is going to be used by joe schmoe and susy ann in jr. high keyboarding class while the teacher isn't looking) is a dramatic step forward.

Google is competing head on with the services that yahoo, aol, and msn provide. Only they are doing it using open standards, and allowing 3rd party clients. From my perspective, this is equivilent of Google putting the rest on notice:

"Look, we aren't going to let you rape your users anymore. We are going to do what you do… Properly."

I think this is a great step forward. Sure, you might think it is a waste of time in the long run.. and you might be right. But something like this NEEDED to be done in order to get the other IM services to play fair. Everyone already knows that the other services would have never opened their protocols without something like this coming forward. The rest will be required to follow suit or bail out of the business. (you may not see it now, but it is coming.. just watch) Source

The client is very simple right now and doesn't support a lot of features that other client do.

• but the voice quality is very good, and the links are stable. A friend was listening on the same audio link all day w/o problems
• no voice mail, no call out to landlines
• no way to see logs of lost calls
• no image smileys in conversations
• very clean conversation window, the fonts are great, they make the whole window extremelly readable
• no support for other protocols. It would be easy to install (couple of plugins on the server) and it would get google talk a lot of users, but it would not offer any incentive to switch.
• replaces the gmail notifier. the google desktop could be also used to replaced the google notifier
• no integration with hello yet. Also no sign of any leaked features from hello to google talk. no integration with picasa, nor with the google desktop.