Here are a couple of posts about tweaking Google Talk. Nothing too ground breaking, but Talk has not been out very long, don’t forget.
Coming to me via Chris Pirillo, there is a note on the Download.com page for Opera 8 saying:
Note: For one day only, you can get an ad-free version of Opera. Simply e-mail registerme@opera.com to obtain a registration code. This offer is valid from 12 a.m. Tuesday, August 30 to 12 a.m. Wednesday, August 31 2005 (PDT).
I don’t mind the Opera browser, it is very fast but still has some rendering bugs (but usually only little things, such as the boxes in Gmail not quite lining up). I have just sent an email into the address, and I will let you know how it goes.
Infinity Plus points out that Google is advertising for a “Sr. Video Conference Engineer” on Yahoo! HotJobs. The position could be for a Google Talk video messaging system, but probably just to manage Google’s internal video conferencing network. Time will tell.
I’m almost sick of hearing about Google Talk…
I don’t know about the rest of the world, but the media in Australia is doing some really bad reporting of Google Talk. The stories on the news are making out like Google is the first to implement any kind of voice communication on the internet – this is obviously not true.
I am a believer in giving credit where credit is due. What about Skype? What about Project Gizmo? What about all the other VoIP and messaging applications that came before Google Talk?
I don’t think Google Talk is that big of a deal. It may be in the future, but not right now. If Google’s hope of messaging system interoperability comes to fruition, then I will be a happy man. Right now though, I don’t have much time for a messaging application that doesn’t support file transfer, group conversations, or many of the other features that I have come to depend on.
I stand corrected, in a way, by Michael Robertson.
Google have announced that they are opening up the Google Talk service to other companies for interoperability. Although this doesn’t mean much now (as I can still only talk to those two other people), it may push the other IM companies to open up their systems as well. Project Gizmo already talks VoIP style with users on Google Talk.
I honestly hope that Google can create some interoperability, but I can’t see it happening. The current IM companies are just too arrogant, they want to own the world dominating IM system, and I think that is the way it is going to stay.
I installed Google Talk (beta), and overall it looks pretty nice. There is one thing though, I only know two other people that are using it right now!
You need to have a Gmail account to use it, and it will only talk to other Gmail users. To me, that is crazy. The IM market is already too over crowded. If Google was smart about it, Google Talk would be another Trillian, just smaller, lighter, and slicker.
I use MSN Messenger as my main IM, but it is a dog. If Google Talk would work with my MSN contacts, I would switch in a second. For now though, I think Google Talk is a little too late.
Just a quick note – Google have released a beta (like everything else they release) Firefox version of their toolbar.
