ZDNet blogger Russell Shaw has a scoop on Google Talk, which provides very basic instant messaging and voice chat--but that's just a beginning. It's one of the seeds for the Googler's grand ambitions to become the software platform for everything from search, location-based data e-mail, telephony and social networking to payment systems, personalized ads, personal spaces and Web-based applications of all kinds.
ZDNet blogger Russell Shaw has a scoop on Google Talk, which provides very basic instant messaging and voice chat--but that's just a beginning. It's one of the seeds for the Googler's grand
ambitions to become the software platform for everything from search, location-based data e-mail, telephony and social networking to payment systems, personalized ads, personal spaces and Web-based applications of all kinds. Can GTunes, Gpay and Goffice be far behind? Search Engine Watch has details and a comparison chart. ZDNet News also has a story with some analysis...
Update: I've been IMing with Steve Gillmor using Google Talk. It's rudimentary compared to Yahoo and AOL instant messengers, which I use. Simple text, but perhaps that's part of the design, to differentiate it from e-mail and other forms of communication that require and often benefit from more fiddling with fonts and formatting. Or maybe, Google felt that it had to float it before it had a "competitive" feature set. Of course, it is beta software, and like all good Net software will have a long public baptismal process. Also Windows only and requires Gmail, no VoIP...yet. Definitely 'early' beta...
