Google Talk

A friend of mine recently commented that Google has so many interesting products but many of them are “below the radar” — you never hear about them if you don’t pay close attention. With the intention of spreading the news about Google’s various services, I want to introduce a new product Google just released today — Google Talk.

Google Talk is an instant messaging and VoIP (Voice over IP) program. It allows you to 1. chat with your friends like AOL Instant Messenger or Yahoo Messenger, and 2. speak with your friends (vocally) if you have a headset or a built-in microphone on your computer. The former won’t be new for most people, but the latter — making “telephone calls” over the Internet to your friends — means that Google will be competing with services like Vonage or Skype. (With the exception that Vonage and Skype allow you to make phone calls to regular phone numbers, while Google Talk does not.)

As of now, Google Talk is only available for Windows, so I haven’t yet tried it. If you get a chance to try it, let me know.

One of the best things about Google Talk is that it embraces “open standards”. Instead of choosing to create its own instant messaging protocol from scratch and forcing everyone to use it, Google used an existing, open protocol called Jabber. Because Google uses Jabber, anyone with a Jabber-compatible chat program can talk with Google Talk users. The latest version of iChat for Mac OS X supports Jabber, so I’ll be able to chat with any Google Talk users.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to voice chat (VoIP) with other Google Talk users. But Google has no intentions of “locking in” its users. It says it is committed to open standards and eventually Google Talk users will be able to call non-Google Talk users. It has plans to “federate” with the Gizmo Project, a VoIP program available on all operating systems.

If you also use Gmail, Google Talk can use your existing contact list.

Other links:
About Google Talk
Getting started with Google Talk