Google Talk Released
It’s hard to tell what kind of impact Google Talk will have on the instant messaging world, but it’s important to note:
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There’s no offline messaging. That’s right: One of the best features Jabber has over AIM and MSN is not present. The official Google Talk client has you send an email with gmail. Other clients simply get an error when they attempt to send offline messages. Hopefully this is just temporary as they work on their server (I’m guessing they rolled their own). There’s no mention as to whether they plan to fix this.
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Google Talk is not connected to the public Jabber network yet. It sounds like they say they’re working on fixing this—I hope it’s sooner rather than later. It’s not actually clear whether they’re talking about communicating with other Jabber servers or simply other IM networks. This is a big one for Jabber. We need these Google Talk users talking to the rest of the Jabber world so it can grow. If Google Talk remains its own island, it’s not going to help the public servers out there.
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The voicechat is not compatible with iChat’s voicechat. Google Talk is currently using their own protocol, but they say they’re working on SIP signaling (which I assume means compatibility with iChat and Trillian Pro, but that protocol is custom and somewhat odd as well). I hope that somehow Google Talk and iChat can work together to create a clean voicechat negotiation protocol.
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The Google Talk client cannot easily connect to Jabber servers other than Google’s, as far as my friends have been able to tell.
[…] Ok, here is the mandatory comment on Google Talk… exactly to combination of open standards we need: XMPP/Jabber for instant messaging and some voice technology. But the most important thing for me: google gave us some (hopefully) stable XMPP servers. Too bad they dont gave us a voice client for MacOSX. As always Julian has some interesting details. […]
Hey guy, what kind of client application and transport server are you using to allow offline messaging to MSN & AIM?
Thank you!
I’ve read in Slashdot that there’s a guy who is using the iChat video with talk.google.com…
Have talk.google.com video support? That’d be nice.
Offline messaging is a standard feature of Jabber, not AIM.
Nothing needs to be done on the server end for Jabber clients to do video or voice chat… that’s all done by the client. As long as talk.google.com is a reasonable server, iChat’s A/V should work fine.
[…] He goes on to say that in response to complaints like mine, the Google Talk developer page has been updated with the following: We plan to support open server-to-server federation. We do believe, however, that it is important to have the safeguards in place to ensure that we maintain a safe and reliable service that protects user privacy and blocks spam and other abuses. […]
[…] The best bet for people looking for a public Jabber account is to sign up for a Google Talk account. Even though Google Talk does not support offline messaging, it does connect to other Jabber servers, meaning you can still send me messages from Google Talk’s servers. Don’t miss Google’s page explaining how to set up iChat. […]
I´ve read everywhere that you can use gmail account with ichat a/v and actually use video and sound functions. Welll…i have a gmail account set with ichat av in os tiger, i have many contacts but still not the ability of using video or sound with them . it is just not an option.
I will appreciate any kind of suggestions here. I´m tired of reading people´s comment enjoying ichat video and audio with gmail accounts. I need help. santiagoesteva@gmail.com
You can’t use it with people using the Google Talk client. If the other person has iChat AV then you should be able to use it with them.
Julian, thanks…that was a quick answer. I did not expect it. Anyhow, it is kind of disappointment. anyhow, i was wondering if there is any client for mac that i could use and take advantage of video and sound with a jabber, msn o gmail account? I have many contacts using those networks and just 1 using a .mac or aim.
Thanks again.
ps: first thing i did after reading your response..was saving your webpage in my favourites bar.
If the Windows user uses Trillian Pro, then iChat AV’s videochat will work with them.
The other option is to use iChat AV with AIM, and have the Windows user use the official AIM client.
I don’t know that there’s anything that you can do with MSN. As far as I know the Mac version of the MSN client only supports the webcam stuff but not full videochat.
’ve read in Slashdot that there’s a guy who is using the iChat video with talk.google.com…
Have talk.google.com video support? That’d be nice.
I have talk.google.com video support. Fully satisfied with it. Just try yourself and you won’t return to anything else.