Michael Dolan Dot Com

Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

Google Talk! Coolest thing since… the last AOL CD I threw away? Ok, not that bad.

I had to try out Google Talk today (http://talk.google.com) and have to say I was not blown away.

The best feature is that it brings up your prior conversations when a new chat window opens. I wonder if they’ll integrate the IM “Conversations” with Gmail conversations later…. just a thought. It also uses the waterfall conversation layout similar to Gmail when you have multiple chat sessions going. I swear Google must have hired away Apples HCI department. So simple, so clean.

I installed it at work on my Windows laptop (every day I boot that thing I cringe; Windows is legacy to me anymore). I’m disappointed in the Google team for not having a Linux client. What’s worse is the lack of support for other networks. It’s based on the common Jabber protocol so at least they didn’t introduce some proprietary protocol like ahem [insert violator's name here]…

I’m waiting to see a Google Linux client before I claim it’s anywhere near as cool as Google Maps. I use the Gaim Jabber connection just fine but would have loved to see Google blow the doors open with an IM/VOIP client for Linux…. maybe someday soon. Otherwise, right now it’s just a clean Windows Jabber client… not sure what’s new. Excellent work by the HCI team though – I love the clean, simplicity of Google’s products and the client GUI definitely shines again – let’s just get that on Linux.

I just found out Google employees call themselves “Googlers” and they call new employees “Nooglers”… kinda funny.