Google Talk
For those who did not feel like reading my last long post, I thought I would put up a separate entry noting the arrival of Google’s chat and online phone service: Google Talk. I just tried the phone feature with my Mom and it works great. The instant messaging feature works well, too.
Google Talk is linked to one’s GMail account, which may make it much too obvious for spam. Luckily, it looks like GTalk will only allow incoming messages from people whom you have designated as contacts. This should cut down on unwanted messages.
August 25th, 2005 at 4:42 am
I was a little disappointed – we have all been getting used to Google doing something special with what it launches but so far this looks very ‘me too’. I hope they put in some “wow” features soon (and release on the Mac)… Is the voice support better than Skype!
August 25th, 2005 at 8:34 am
I don’t use such services enough to compare well, but having tried GTalk (once for now), I can say that the sound quality is very nice.
I should probably add a note here about my use of such services: I rarely use them and tend to reserve them for communication with family. I am concerned about the time sink that would be involved and prefer not to be “on call” all the time.