google talk (not that nonsense-generating thing, it's like AIM kinda)

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

http://www.google.com/talk/

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

I've had skype on my computer and haven't used it ever. Myself and fads, like peas in a bloody pod.

― Kv_nol (Kv_nol), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

my husband just downloaded it and talked (chicago-paris) through his headphones. for free. he said that the sound quality was acceptable. are phone companies going to freak out? how long will this take to catch on?

― The Milkmaid (of Human Kindness) (The Milkmaid), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

Well Skype (which does the same thing) has caught on pretty well alreay I think

― Baaderonixx on a long black leash (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 13:35 (twenty years ago)

damn i was hoping it would work in the office :(

it installed okay but won't connect through the firewall :||

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

did you know there's also a thing called "google groups" ?!?!? (that's like yahoo groups?)

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 14:38 (twenty years ago)

it's more a usenet service, isn't it? i very, very occasionally use it to check a couple of newsgroups to which i used to post.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 14:39 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it's a Usenet archive. They took over deja.com and expanding the holdings back through the late eighties at least.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

When very bored, I try to track down the first Usenet message and follow conversations about Bob Dylan's eagerly anticipated 1983 comeback album...

― Baaderonixx on a long black leash (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 14:47 (twenty years ago)

I haven't used the voice feature yet, but the chat function is nice--I chatted with a friend who was using some sort of XMPP client on his unix box. It dovetails nicely with gmail too, gives you a little popup (if you want it) whenever you get new gmail. I have the firefox extension that does this, but this one is nicer.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

yeah well you could already do the mail alert thing with the gmail notifier (and i guess this chat thing is a fancier version of that!)

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:13 (twenty years ago)

The first Usenet messages go back to '83 or so, but Google Groups' archive is a bit patchy that far back.

Woo, I've managed to connect to it using GAIM, although I have zero chance of getting the audio chat to work. My username is forestpines, if anyone fancies a chat.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:19 (twenty years ago)

hasn't iChat done this same thing for over a year now? i can have an audio chat with anyone with a mic.

― biz, Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

i had an audio chat with someone on ICQ (omg remember that?) in 2001 (it wasn't a new thing eveb back then)

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

yes, you can connect to Google Talk with iChat, although not do audio with Google Talk users through it.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

So is google talk like a universal platform for all messengers (dream on)?

― Baaderonixx on a long black leash (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

Ken, there is a Settings/Connection option where you can put in proxy info. I initially couldn't get it to work in my office either but after trying several different proxy servers (our IT department uses a script to determine which proxy to use) I finally found one that would let me through. Only problem is none of my co-workers have a microphone so we've had to make do with shouting into headphones in order to talk to each other.

― ketone, Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

I don't understand

so what?

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:45 (twenty years ago)

I mean we already have all this functionality

why bother?

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:46 (twenty years ago)

This looks fantastic - nice and simple without all those bloaty msn features (winks, nudges et al). I've got no one to talk to though yet (typical), so if anyone fancies giving me something to do this afternoon, my username's the same as my gmail underneath this.

― melton mowbray (adr), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

I still prefer Skype for voice chat.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:51 (twenty years ago)

I like it because it's an open Jabber-protocol server that doesn't suck or cost money and ties in with my gmail account. Doubt I'll ever use the voice chat so much, but I really like XMPP... I'm all programming-geeky though.

― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:56 (twenty years ago)

i guess the reason this strikes me as noteworthy is that the Google name is more recognizable to the masses (ie, people like me who have never heard of Skype) and therefore puts this technology into the hands of more people.

― The Milkmaid (of Human Kindness) (The Milkmaid), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

the integration with gmail contacts is cool; I haven't used any sort of voice chat so would be very interested to see how this compares with skype et al!

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 16:00 (twenty years ago)

a lot of the stuff are what MSN and Yahoo have been doing for ages though. (e.g. the linking with contacts, voice, mail alerts etc)

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 16:08 (twenty years ago)

As far as I know Google Talk isn't for Apple users (unless you use Gaim, right?). Personally I don't give a shit, because I have Skype and only use that for chats with my parents. That said, Skype hasbeen wonky of late but usually it works fine after you restart it. I have been trying to get my parents on iCHAT because it seems handier, but they are deaf to my pleas. :-) I have never done audiochats with people other than my parents. It just seems very weird. But I guess that's just me being conservative or something.

Skype doesn't always have the best quality but, hey, it's FREE, so why complain? I wonder if it depends on the amount of users?

So is google talk like a universal platform for all messengers (dream on)?

Oh no, it's on its own. You also have to have a Gmail account if I remember correctly. Also it doesn't work for Apple.

― nathalie starts to cry each time we meet (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

It should work with iChat as well as Gaim, but only for text chatting.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 16:41 (twenty years ago)

This is all speculation, but there have been reports that google has been buying up tons of dark fiber (the unused fiber optic lines) in the U.S. Possibly for use in some sort of large, ad supported wi-fi network. Couple this with the open nature of the Jabber/XMPP protocol google is using, which allows for chat clients to be easily created for different platforms and we could very quickly see a ton of devices making use of the im, and especially the chat features in google talk.

A google talk client could be created for most of the newer mobile phones/PDA's that are coming to market, hell even the Nintendo DS (it’s got a built in microphone and 802.11 wi-fi access). When wi-fi access is widely available and especially if it is subsided by someone like google then the average consumer’s dependence on cellular companies for their mobile communications needs will be greatly diminished. People could simply use their phone/gameboy/etc... to connect to a wifi network and make cheap/free "calls" using skype or google talk. I would expect the cell phone companines to fight this every step of the way as they would like to continue selling you Crazy Frog ringtones for a couple of bucks a pop.

Who knows if any of this will happen but it has the potential to be an extremely disruptive piece of technology. As others have pointed out nothing in google talk is really new, what is different is that the protocol is open which will hopefully lead to some standardization among the different chat clients, and google has the pockets (they just raised another 4 billion from selling some of their stock) to implement some of the more extreme ideas mentioned above.

― ketone, Wednesday, 24 August 2005 16:49 (twenty years ago)

You can't call land lines with Google Talk, though (yet); you can with Skype.

― James Mitchell (James Mitchell), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 16:54 (twenty years ago)

what the hell is Skype?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

http://www.skype.com/helloagain.html

― nathalie starts to cry each time we meet (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

what the hell is Skype?

See this thread...

fancy a skype ilx0rs?

I like Skype a lot. I got myself a couple SkypeIn phone numbers when I was looking for jobs in different area codes.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

Either the new google desktop is extremely slow to set itself up or it is massively bugsXored. The google talk panel has been "connecting" for 20 minutes now. Is that normal?

― Baaderonixx on a long black leash (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

Don't think so, tried restarting your comp and the program?

― nathalie starts to cry each time we meet (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 17:50 (twenty years ago)

The FAQ for Google Talk clearer states that they are in negotiations with VOIP providers. But as is, it doesn't seem like Google Talk really competes with Skype, in that you still can't talk to existing landlines/mobiles. Once they start being able to hook this up to existing phone infrastructure, there is a real opportunity for this to take off.

Google points out that they're planning to take the whole of Talk as a loss. They are making up for that by getting more people involved with GMail, which they can use make paid ad money. I don't see how other similar Chat+VOIP products like Skype could really survive well.

reports that google has been buying up tons of dark fiber

This is most likely just going to be used to save cost of the extraordinary bandwidth involved in running Google now and in the future. Google has the money, and dark fiber is cheap right now. Anyway, pieiin-the-sky wireless mesh stuff is difficult and expensive, and however cool it sounds its probably in Google's interest to let someone else worry about the last mile connections.

― Rhodia (Rhodia), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 21:54 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

This is great. I haven't tried Skype yet, though.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Skype, and more "proper" VOIP services are the bane of my worklife right now. People are trying to use voip to save money on phonecalls, but when its a business doing so and expecting rock solid reliability like the regular POTS phone network, well they're dreaming. VOIP needs a fair whack of bandwidth, no packet loss, and low ping times. If you only have a 256k link for example, and you want to use it for all sorts of other shit as well, the voip will break up, not work, etc.

People dont yet understand this (and why should they, I guess). So people like me spend days sighing, trying not to commit hari-kiri, and saying "you need to upgrade" to customers.

As for google talk well, its ok. For me, a chat client is only useful if everyone else is on it as well which is why I stick with MSN. Googletalk also worries me because, anyone else with a gmail account that you've emailed recently it adds to your talk list without asking you for confirmation! Sod that.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

I do agree that it's confusing trying to remember which friends/family are using which chat client. And running three or four clients simultaneously seems woefully inefficient.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:41 (twenty years ago)

Well I guess some would argue thats where Trillian etc come in. I used to use it, til MSN blocked it and then so did my work.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 23:01 (twenty years ago)

anyone else with a gmail account that you've emailed recently it adds to your talk list without asking you for confirmation!

I think this is something you can set in your preferences.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 23:28 (twenty years ago)

Oh, really? I'll have to check that, thanks :)

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.