Comparison Chart
Need that at-a-glance view to how things measure up? Gary was busy yesterday, and he's what he's assembled:
Feature AOL Google MSN Yahoo
GroupText Chats
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Voice (PC to PC)
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Video Chat
Yes
No
Yes
No
VoIP (Call Regular Phone)
Yes
No
No
Yes
File/Image Sharing
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Google Desktop Index Chats?
Yes
No
Yes
No
Mobile Version?
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Built-InSearch Box
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Send Text To Mobile Phones
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Alerts (News, Mail, Etc)
Yes
Mail Only
Yes
Yes
Want Google Talk? You Need Gmail!
How do you get Google Talk? You have to have a Gmail account. But Gmail remains a closed beta, so how to get in if you're not there already?
Google's established a new program allowing anyone in the US who can receive an SMS message to gain a Gmail account. That pretty much means anyone with a US cell phone (though I'm betting a Canadian number will also work).
Visit this page and instructions on where to send a message to Google are posted. Once you receive your code via SMS, follow these instructions, you can get an account.
Why this runaround? Why not just open things up? Google says it wants to find a way to expand the program but prevent it from being used by those who might set up a ton of accounts for spamming purposes.
"We wanted to expand the list of people who can do it [Gmail], so we're doing these text message signups. But we want to prevent lots of spam. We want to make sure Gmail is not a haven for spammers or a place where you receive spam. So we decided at this point not to go forward with an open strategy but a slightly closed one," Harik said.
By the way, Google does plan to offer SMS messaging for those outside the US to get Gmail accounts, as it sorts out details with various access providers, it said.
Monday, May 5, 2008
No Google Desktop Support
Oddly, text chat done in Google Talk is NOT indexed and made searchable by Google Desktop. Google Desktop does this for AOL chats and recently added support for MSN Messenger. Google said there are no immediate plans to add indexing support for Google Talk.
That had better change -- and soon -- if Google is serious about winning people over. Or at least winning me. I've found having my AOL chats indexed very helpful. Gary and I talk via instant messaging throughout the day on AIM, and it's been handy to search and find what we've discussed. I'm not likely to have an extended conversation in Google Talk until I know that support is there.
FYI, Google Talk will save the last 20 lines of discussion you've had with someone, even after you close the client and restart later. Nice -- but I want more history than this.
Google Talk's also got a way to go to convince me to leave Yahoo Messenger, which as I said I use to communicate with my wife while I'm traveling. The client is easy to use, includes video calling as well, plus links her into Yahoo Mail, which she loves. There's a billion other things also built in.
Now if Google Talk adds decent video calling, I'll be more tempted. My attempts at using video calling with AIM and MSN's tool left me more than disappointed. Tiny windows and space shuttle-like flicker and jerkiness was not impressive.
Yahoo's tool offers "Super Webcam" mode, but no matter what I do, it never seems to activate. Still, it was for me better than AIM or MSN. In the end, I resorted to using SightSpeed, which gave me a much better and bigger picture, though there's still plenty of room for improvement. Occasionally, I'd have connection problems with it. Yahoo always connected, even if the picture quality was poor.
That had better change -- and soon -- if Google is serious about winning people over. Or at least winning me. I've found having my AOL chats indexed very helpful. Gary and I talk via instant messaging throughout the day on AIM, and it's been handy to search and find what we've discussed. I'm not likely to have an extended conversation in Google Talk until I know that support is there.
FYI, Google Talk will save the last 20 lines of discussion you've had with someone, even after you close the client and restart later. Nice -- but I want more history than this.
Google Talk's also got a way to go to convince me to leave Yahoo Messenger, which as I said I use to communicate with my wife while I'm traveling. The client is easy to use, includes video calling as well, plus links her into Yahoo Mail, which she loves. There's a billion other things also built in.
Now if Google Talk adds decent video calling, I'll be more tempted. My attempts at using video calling with AIM and MSN's tool left me more than disappointed. Tiny windows and space shuttle-like flicker and jerkiness was not impressive.
Yahoo's tool offers "Super Webcam" mode, but no matter what I do, it never seems to activate. Still, it was for me better than AIM or MSN. In the end, I resorted to using SightSpeed, which gave me a much better and bigger picture, though there's still plenty of room for improvement. Occasionally, I'd have connection problems with it. Yahoo always connected, even if the picture quality was poor.
Text & Voice Chat
Google Talk, of course, allows instant messaging. If you're completely unfamiliar with instant messaging, it means that you can connect with someone you know, then do a textual conversation back-and-forth with them. Other IM clients offer this as well. It's the core part of IM.
Aside from textual chat, you can do voice chat. This means you can talk through the internet to anyone on your contact list, as long as they have a computer equipped with a microphone and speakers and have a broadband connection.
This is PC-to-PC calling, not voice over the internet or VoIP. In other words, you aren't going to be using Google Talk to place calls from one telephone to another or from a computer to a telephone, although that apparently may come in the future. For now, it only works between computers.
How well does it work? When I talked with someone from Google on it on Tuesday, the sound quality was great. Gary and I couldn't connect at all, however, nor could Google connect with Gary.
Gary's fault? In the end, we changed one of his settings to use a specific output device for calls rather than the default device and got it going. And absolutely -- when we talked, the sound quality for me on my end in Google was much better than with Yahoo. On Gary's end, he felt things were about the same. He also wondered if he had too many apps open for Yahoo to work properly.
Google says the voice processing system it uses is supposed to produce especially good sound quality over rivals, plus it says there's supposed to be a lot of support to avoid conflicts with firewalls.
As said, the sound quality was great to me compared to Yahoo Messenger, when talking with Gary. But I used Yahoo Messenger's voice calling earlier this month to talk with my wife while I was traveling. I thought that sounded great then. In the end, I think the jury's out. We'll know in short order how the quality of calls is as people begin testing and comparing properly this week.
Unlike Google, Yahoo's tool lets you leave voice mail if no one answers (Google said a similar feature will be coming). I also like Yahoo's audio tuning wizard, which makes it easy to know if things are working. In fact, Yahoo's tuning tool easily solved the problem I mentioned Gary was having, while in Google, we had to hunt around to figure out the problem.
Yahoo's tool just came out of beta earlier this month, a sign of its maturity. Google's, of course, has just emerged to the world in beta. Prior to this, it was tested for about a month internally, Google said.
Aside from textual chat, you can do voice chat. This means you can talk through the internet to anyone on your contact list, as long as they have a computer equipped with a microphone and speakers and have a broadband connection.
This is PC-to-PC calling, not voice over the internet or VoIP. In other words, you aren't going to be using Google Talk to place calls from one telephone to another or from a computer to a telephone, although that apparently may come in the future. For now, it only works between computers.
How well does it work? When I talked with someone from Google on it on Tuesday, the sound quality was great. Gary and I couldn't connect at all, however, nor could Google connect with Gary.
Gary's fault? In the end, we changed one of his settings to use a specific output device for calls rather than the default device and got it going. And absolutely -- when we talked, the sound quality for me on my end in Google was much better than with Yahoo. On Gary's end, he felt things were about the same. He also wondered if he had too many apps open for Yahoo to work properly.
Google says the voice processing system it uses is supposed to produce especially good sound quality over rivals, plus it says there's supposed to be a lot of support to avoid conflicts with firewalls.
As said, the sound quality was great to me compared to Yahoo Messenger, when talking with Gary. But I used Yahoo Messenger's voice calling earlier this month to talk with my wife while I was traveling. I thought that sounded great then. In the end, I think the jury's out. We'll know in short order how the quality of calls is as people begin testing and comparing properly this week.
Unlike Google, Yahoo's tool lets you leave voice mail if no one answers (Google said a similar feature will be coming). I also like Yahoo's audio tuning wizard, which makes it easy to know if things are working. In fact, Yahoo's tuning tool easily solved the problem I mentioned Gary was having, while in Google, we had to hunt around to figure out the problem.
Yahoo's tool just came out of beta earlier this month, a sign of its maturity. Google's, of course, has just emerged to the world in beta. Prior to this, it was tested for about a month internally, Google said.
Doesn't Seem To "Pull A Google" With Wow Factor
Unlike some past Google products, like Google Maps or Gmail, Google Talk does not seem to "pull a Google" as I like to call in in rewriting what we expect from an application or service. No "wow" feature jumps out at me or Gary Price, Search Engine Watch's news editor who worked with me on the story. Voice quality is supposed to be that factor -- and perhaps it is more than we're realizing. More on this below. But aside from that, there's nothing stunning.
Admittedly, I'm not an old hand at IM, not having used it much until the past year or so. But I've used both AOL's AIM service and Yahoo Messenger enough to know that Google Talk has no real bells or whistles that those are lacking.
This is also a good point to note that Search Engine Watch has no intention of suddenly diving into instant messaging coverage. If you want to learn more in depth on the subject, check out a site such as Instant Messaging Planet or read up on IM via Wikipedia's entry on it. IM isn't search, so it's not where we'll spend our time in depth.
Having said this, we'll dive in a bit this time to look at what Google offers and touch briefly on how it measures up from my and Gary's experience. Just bear in mind this is not a comprehensive feature-by-feature review, nor is it meant to be.
Admittedly, I'm not an old hand at IM, not having used it much until the past year or so. But I've used both AOL's AIM service and Yahoo Messenger enough to know that Google Talk has no real bells or whistles that those are lacking.
This is also a good point to note that Search Engine Watch has no intention of suddenly diving into instant messaging coverage. If you want to learn more in depth on the subject, check out a site such as Instant Messaging Planet or read up on IM via Wikipedia's entry on it. IM isn't search, so it's not where we'll spend our time in depth.
Having said this, we'll dive in a bit this time to look at what Google offers and touch briefly on how it measures up from my and Gary's experience. Just bear in mind this is not a comprehensive feature-by-feature review, nor is it meant to be.
New Google Talk Offers Instant Messaging & Voice Chat
As widely expected, Google waded into the instant messaging space today with the debut of Google Talk, an IM client that also offers the ability to make voice calls between computers.
The entry sees Google directly competing against the much more mature clients and established user bases of competitors Yahoo and MSN, not to mention its own partner AOL. The move also opens Google up to accusations that it is way off its mission of "to organize the world's information." Heck, Google Talk doesn't even feature a box to let you search for things, as rival products from AOL, MSN and Yahoo do.
Of course, the failure to launch an instant messaging product would leave Google at a competitive disadvantage. In the end, while the company may not like the P word, but a portal Google effectively is.
Personal home pages Google has, in the form of blogs. Email it offers, in the form of Gmail. A personalized home page it gained in May. Offering instant messaging is a natural progression, something many of Google's users may want if not expect. And if Google fails to offer IM, it risks having users turn to a competitor for it.
For its part, Google believes instant messaging does fit in with its overall mission.
"We think an important part of information is communication, so we see this as a little bit of an extension of what we did with Gmail, said Georges Harik, director of product management at Google. "Sometimes you don't want to wait. You want to send it right now. This is one way to address that, as well as with voice."
The entry sees Google directly competing against the much more mature clients and established user bases of competitors Yahoo and MSN, not to mention its own partner AOL. The move also opens Google up to accusations that it is way off its mission of "to organize the world's information." Heck, Google Talk doesn't even feature a box to let you search for things, as rival products from AOL, MSN and Yahoo do.
Of course, the failure to launch an instant messaging product would leave Google at a competitive disadvantage. In the end, while the company may not like the P word, but a portal Google effectively is.
Personal home pages Google has, in the form of blogs. Email it offers, in the form of Gmail. A personalized home page it gained in May. Offering instant messaging is a natural progression, something many of Google's users may want if not expect. And if Google fails to offer IM, it risks having users turn to a competitor for it.
For its part, Google believes instant messaging does fit in with its overall mission.
"We think an important part of information is communication, so we see this as a little bit of an extension of what we did with Gmail, said Georges Harik, director of product management at Google. "Sometimes you don't want to wait. You want to send it right now. This is one way to address that, as well as with voice."
Here comes Google Voice
Lots of talk about Google introducing an instant messaging client, using the Jabber technology. I think this will be a voice enabled IM product, which will be released in order to match the “talk” features of Yahoo and MSN. Google Rumors reports that the talk.google.com domain has become active, and sends you to google.com/talk which shows a 404 message. There is already news that Google is running a Jabber server. Jabber already has a deal with AOL, and from the looks of it, is fast becoming a platform of choice for voice-over-IM.
> The Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP), known for its’ highly programmable presence and messaging framework and unique capability to bridge applications, networks, devices, multi-media, and protocols, is extending even farther.
Jabber’s deal with AOL is all about offering “federated IM” service that can also connect to ICQ and Apple’s iChat. And now Google. And this is the worst possible news for someone like Skype, because now they will up against not two but three giants who want to offer a pale-version of Skype.
> The Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP), known for its’ highly programmable presence and messaging framework and unique capability to bridge applications, networks, devices, multi-media, and protocols, is extending even farther.
Jabber’s deal with AOL is all about offering “federated IM” service that can also connect to ICQ and Apple’s iChat. And now Google. And this is the worst possible news for someone like Skype, because now they will up against not two but three giants who want to offer a pale-version of Skype.
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