GoogleTalk updates

Wouldn't it be great if GoogleTalk, Skype, Msn Messenger or something else actually fulfilled the original NetMeeting/Cuseeme dream ?(or at least my NetMeeting dream ;-) ... Ad hoc multiparty audio/video and data/application sharing over the internet that just works).

Brian: yeah. I wish Microsoft just had invested more in NetMeeting.

I love it as an IM, no extra fancy crap. It is light weight and does the job. I like it even more as it is directly integrated into my Gmail window, where not only can I chat, but can talk with friends and developers like Richard White (Developer of Slim Timer), Maggie Tsai (Diigo) and many more.

Amazing how many people just want a simple Instant Messaging client (ala Google Talk) to just send instant messages.

But that's crazy talk. People want so many features that suddenly your IM client has a bigger memory footprint then your web browser.

My IM clients just sit in the taskbar doing nothing for most part of the day. Why can't they 'sleep' during that time? I don't mind if it takes 5 seconds to fire them up :)

wake them up would have been a better usage :sheesh:

I'm with you all the way on this.

I've avoided Messenger for years just on sheer... irritation. It is a great chat client, it has excellent features, and does many things well (and since I use a convertible laptop, the tablet functionality is nice as well....) BUT... I've spent years FIGHTING MSMessenger as it tried to load up at start up, couldn't uninstall it, and made itself a general nuisance. At this point these aren't such salient issues, but there is an inertia that has been built up.

I love GoogleTalk for exactly the reasons you mentioned, it is elegant and it works. The only drawback, and the only reason I don't use it (I use Gaim these days since it interfaces with AIM and GoogleTalk) is that while I know many people using gmail, I know so few who use GoogleTalk that it simply isn't practical and I don't like having more than one chat program running at a time.

Personally, I wish I could use Adium with a PC, but alas.

But you nailed the MS philosophy very well - too complicated, too in your face, and simply lacks elegance. I recently tested out their new security suite and found it far too cludgy when PC-cillin does the job so wonderfully without ever being in my face.

My initial impression of Vista was similar, as I got tired of "allowing" every single program I used to run. But, hey, at least it was somewhat stylish and I am weak to my aesthetic.

There's a simple reason you don't get the IMs of today, Robert: You are old.

I had seen how kids and those just becoming students use IM, and its not a case of "simple is better". All the features of MSN/Windows Live Messenger are used and then some.

And is Joe Beda still monging on about Microsoft? Didn't he leave quite some time ago? You wouldn't know it from his posts.

I'm still addicted to Skype based on features and the fact that it has a solid mobile client. I AM looking for something to auto-sent my presence though...something Bluetooth perhaps that you wear so that when you walk away from the PC, you're client it set to Away. Sit back down and you're Available again. I just blogged the idea over at jkOTR and here's hoping pt over at MAKE or the hack-a-day folks read it. Oh and Robert, I would feel too presumptious calling you on Skype, but thanks for the offer. If you feel like reversing the situation, I hide behind the uber-secret Skype name of *whispers* KevinCTofel. ;)

Oh, and of course, Google Talk isn't just some app with a proprietary protocol. It's based around XMPP, which is *the* IETF standard for instant messaging. So, you don't even need to run the GoogleTalk app. You can run anything which supports the Jabber protocol.

GoogleTalk also works with iChat as a Jabber service.

A LOT of people like applications with LOTS of features. Why do you think applications are getting bloated (err, 'Feature rich')? I mean, every application starts as a simple, easy-to-use, straight forward piece of software. Users aren't content with less features. They demand more and more features!

You can take GTalk itself as an example. It started as a very simple application: Chat/Talk. Then they added profile pictures. And now, 'listening to...' & file transfer. What next? Emoticons? And then the 'buzz' feature of Y! and WLMsngr. And pretty soon, it will be just another chat application.

I use WLMsngr, Y!Msngr, GTalk and Skype. I give my frieds 'a choice'! - to use whatever chat applications they prefer to get in touch with me. In the end, it's personal choice.

Just as a side note, it's pretty obvious that now that you are out of Microsoft, you are finding fault in almost everything they do. Well, good for you!

And, Microsofties & Microsoft get small things. Otherwise they wouldn't be where they are - anti-trust or otherwise.

I think it is not an abomination.

I love GTalk's simplistic and uncluttered UI. Look at the dog's breakfast that is MSN Messenger (even Live). The ads, the God awful emoticons people customize! I've seen some conversations with so much graphical/animated crap on it that it's hard to even tell what someone is saying.

There is still no scroll bar :(

I agree with you 100% on google talk. Google talk is the lightest weight most simple IM client out there. It now has File Transfer so I think it is just about perfect. Getting your friends to switch though is next to impossible. The user base is so small :( Someday it will be integrated with AIM then it will be huge! Why can't all applications be like Google talk? It is so simple, so clean looking. The updates are fast and unintrusive too.

Brandon. You're right. Getting people on it is hard. They are used to MSN or some other and switching for them is too much of a pain. I switched from MSN to Yahoo! since they now can talk to one another. I prefer their client. But I'd jump to GTalk in a heartbeat if they could all get along. Why can' we all just get along? :)

Dileepa: I think Microsoft ONCE DID get small things.

I don't know that they get them anymore.

Name one thing Microsoft has done for the Web in the past three years FIRST without someone else proving that there's a business model there. I'm struggling to think of one. Can you?

Dileepa, if you think I only hate Microsoft then you are really gonna miss a lot about what I'm saying here.

I still love Microsoft. I use its software about 18 hours a day.

But, yeah, I do feel more likely to give the company a hard time now that I'm not there. That's pretty natural, don't you think?

"It was a small thing. Microsofties don’t get small things. I think it’s a disease of Microsoft’s."

I agree with that. I've had conversations with Microsoft employees who either won't or can't see why so many people like the simplicity of the iPod interface. But when a company adds 10,000 people in a year I guess it's got to believe that what the world needs is more features.

I agree with Dileepa about lightweight apps slowly getting more and more features and ultimately ending up just as bloated as the other ones out there. Anyone care to bet how long before google talk includes video chat? :) But about Scoble giving microsoft a hard time only because he is no longer there -- clearly Dileepa hasnt been reading Scoble's posts whilst he was at microsoft! :)

Scoble: Well, the web may not be Microsoft's cup-of-tea - and your post isn't limited to the web! But, that isn't the only place to innovate. What about the dev tools? What about the .net framework (I am talking only about the .net framework)? What about providing an open platform (everyone: don't confuse this with open source) where everyone can develop and deploy great applications for the common user? What about providing the very platform that is making all these web companies hugely successful? Ever think of it that way? And what about bringing multimedia to the masses? Apple didn't do that! Neither did Google.

I used to like Google a lot. But, their behavior these days isn't what you call 'do-no-evil'. Their toolbar is bundled with everything (so is Yahoo!'s). It's equivalent to spyware for me - unwanted application, among other things. They turn on search history by default - I have a feeling that they maintain my individual search history even if I have turned off the feature. I use their web client now, mainly (rather - ONLY) because of the POP support.

Evariste: Have been reading Scobleizer for about more than an year, I think. I found him through Channel 9 - which is kind of crazy :).

It's the tone of his posts that I am finding fault with. No one should expect him to write the way he used to when he was working at Microsoft. But, doesn't mean that everything Microsoft does (or doesn't do) is wrong! I am not trying to defend Microsoft - they don't pay me to do that! But, every little thing Google does (even crappy software) is highlighted as "innovative", when even good stuff from other companies fail to get a mention.

Name one other innovation from Google apart from Google search. (For the common user - not taking about AdSense.)

I guess I'm of two minds on the issue. When Google Talk came out, I hated it because it had no features; but I don't like bloated IM programs either. I saw someone install the AOL "Triton" IM client. Geez that thing had its own OS. Added 97 services, 142 processes and 2 network adapters. It sort of turns your computer into a massive IM machine that incidentally might have the capacity left over to run other applications.

It could just be one of those things where the hardware has to catch up to the software. Windows Live Messenger, which seemed bloated and sluggish on my old Tablet PC, turns out to be not painful at all on a dual core MacBook with 2 GB of memory. :-)

Less features does not equal elegance. It's too easy to say "less is more" and suggest that people should want less features. They don't. People want MORE features. What they are strongly attracted to, however, is MORE features with LESS complexity.

MORE features with LESS complexity = Elegance.

That's something Apple figured out a long time ago. When I fired up iChat, it didn't walk me through a Wizard where I had to select my video camera and manually adjust the gain on my microphone. It just started working. That's elegance.

Microsoft figured it out too, with Office 2007. The next version of Office will have more features than Office 2003, but it will be easier to use. That's elegance.

Google, meanwhile, seems to be bent on recapitulating Microsoft's history, at least in part. But they are not immune to bloat, or creeping featureitis, as shown by Google Talk. And every time they add a feature to Gmail, it looks just a little bit more cluttered. And they just added a fly-out menu to the Google home page. The famous, pristine, uncluttered Google search page now hides newsgroup searches in favor of video searches...

Never confuse a spartan paucity of features with elegance. :-)

Dileepa: >What about the dev tools? What about the .net framework (I am talking only about the .net framework)?

Wonderful. Sparkle is great. Too bad it's going to have a very hard time getting going. Why? Cause it doesn't support cross-platform development. You did notice that Apple's market share is going up up up up, right?

The problem is that Microsoft is resting on its laurels. Instead of turning on the Web gas, and figuring out how to ship OS's faster and faster, they bet too much on proprietary and "boil the ocean" features and slipped, slipped, slipped.

So, employees leave and do Google Talk before their projects back at Microsoft even ship.

Doesn't that piss you off?

Other innovations from Google besides search?? What about Google Maps and Google Earth?? (both huge successes and different from stuff that existed before in terms of usability...and a big WOW factor). Also gmail (which does have its share of problems, but has tons of innovative features), Google News...all not perfect products, but definitely innovative and had all the other big players play catch up...

gtalk is perfect as an extra feature for gmail (i.e. to send a chat instead of an email if a contact is online)

The problem with gtalk is that it is *too* lightweight for my regular chat purposes.

MSN messenger is definitely the app of choice for the university students I know and a good number keep it running 24/7.

I agree with Karim. The key to great software is adding features without adding complexity. GTalk does exactly that; it just added a bunch of new features without adding complexity. It's the sort of thing that Apple builds its reputation on and Google (usually) gets right to, at least most of the time.

I think Microsoft got it with Office 2007 (and Windows Live Writer, for that matter), but it's usually something MS is way off the mark with. MSN/YIM/AIM turned me off years ago as these programs demanded more and more screen space and system resources, got ever more bloated interfaces, and incorporated more and more annoying pop up messages.

I think you are trashing MS for no reason. MSN is the king now, even not being first (and AOL refuse to interop).

Try giving Gtalk to your teen kid. What? no fun? no emoticons? Isn't IM about the fun?

You adults only think about work.. sigh

With added drag and drop image and file sharing GoogleTalk is easily the best client.

Its amazing the people who think Google came up with the innovation for Google Earth and don't realise they got it by buying Keyhole Corp.

What ever happened to people using ICQ? I fired it up the other day and my old username was still working (even though I hadn't signed in on it in about 6-7 years). That's a basic enough IM client isn't it?

Dips: ICQ got killed by MSN. Why did I go to MSN? Because it had a far simpler UI.

Why am I using GoogleTalk more and more? It has a far simpler UI.

Watch the usage trends over the next few years.

@Evariste: Google News innovation? Guess you never knew Deja.com before Google bought it.

Scoble: Yes... Microsoft had made lots of mistakes with both the OS and their web services. Even SteveB admits to this! They'll learn from it and come out better and stronger. How can anyone forget the 2MB Hotmail inboxes? It still is 2MB for a majority of people!!

I can't understand why people can't stand 'proprietary'. Apple is proprietary. PDF is proprietary. Flash is proprietary. Proprietary doesn't necessarily mean bad. Heck, even Google is proprietary. Ask Google to release it's Linux custom kernel? Really... why isn't anyone asking them to do it? Why not open source the Google Talk project? (because it uses the Jabber protocol and anyone can connect to it?) Why not port it to Linux - not a WINE hack like Picasa for Linux - a proper port. Google is making money off open source, but giving very little back (other than sponsoring projects with it's self-interest in mind and hiring a few open source influentials - just to keep the community quiet).

And why crib only about only proprietary software? What about proprietary hardware. Can we ask Intel and AMD to open source their processor designs - may be the open source community can come up with better pipeling or branch prediction algorithms or whatever!

Employees leaving to join other companies is nothing new. The grass always looks 'greener' on the other side! Sometimes, it really is, sometimes it is not. That guy who left Microsoft and joined Google to create GTalk: his product is used by thousands of people, while Windows Live Messenger, a pretty new release, is used by millions. Why? Microsoft is not forcing anyone to use it.

And how long before we see GTalk bundled with Acrobat or Flash or whatever? Flash - a simple 800+ kB download suddenly is over 2 MB!

Evariste:
Google Maps: Good mapping solutions existed before Google Maps.

Google Earth: If I remember right, it's some other company that did this and Google bought that company. (Yeah, Microsoft does this too... so does Yahoo, while Apple just copies!)

GMail: Hardly innovative. The UI is confusing. Message grouping doesn't always work right. Better web mail clients exist! But, yeah - storage space - super innovative! Added bonus: POP support :)

I was just looking at the Mem Usage of Win Live Messenger vs. Gtalk, MSN on my machine is running at 26,284k where as Gtalk is running at 16,572.

Maybe I just don't know (which is a good possibility) but 10k isn't really all that much more in my mind. Especially given the amount of features msn includes over Gtalk.

Firefox is currently running at 19,240k and look at all the features included in that.

For as little that Gtalk has to offer, it seems to me like it should be running at like 5-10k at the most.

Personally I don't care for Gtalk simply because of the lack of features, I can't even tell you how many times I use Video/audio chat in Msn, or remote desktop help, or share files or folders, etc. I simply can't do a lot of that stuff with Gtalk.

I guess all the ads, or tabs, etc. in Msn don't bother me, probably because I close the main msn or gtalk windows and it sits in my system tray until I need to contact someone, then I just select the person I need to talk to and then close the main window again and leave only the chat window open.

So the extra features don't exactly get in my way or bother me, I really only see them when I need them.

And since everyone always like to talk about who copies who, blah blah blah, have you ever looked at the "Settings" window in GTalk and compared it to the Options window in MSN, looks pretty much the same, and I'm pretty sure MSN was around first.

Everything gets copied, all the time, computers all have monitors, cars all have steering wheels, bikes all have brakes, it happens, it's how things evolve into better things.