Niponwave

Google launched its text-chat and voice-communication program last Wednesday. Now in its beta release, Google Talk has little to offer its users. A crisp interface and close integration with GMail is all that may catch one’s fancy. But when it comes to features, Google Talk seriously lags behind its competitors. The fancy emoticons which are the very essense of instant messaging are missing in Google’s latest offering. No support for webcam or file transfer either. The voice quality is good if you are on broadband. The software uses the open XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) that allows its users to communicate with other messaging systems that use the same protocol, such as Jabber and Apple’s iChat—something that is really good. It may soon revolutionize the IM world forcing others like Yahoo or MSN to embrace open standards, but that may be possible if Google can build up a large user base. For the time being, Google Talk is not worth switching too. However, Google promises to pack a lot more features in future and include support for other operating systems (currently it is available for Windows only). We will wait till then.