Phew, I’m very busy for the last two days, and that includes updating my Google-talk contact list.
Google-talk is yet another Instant Messenger client. Much like MSN, Yahoo or AOL/ICQ instant messenger, a clear rival to Google. So Google apparently doesn’t want to be left out in the IM business and launched Google-talk (still BETA).
Google-talk official client is small and neat, without much eyecandy (including smilies), but hey, it does the work. Another addon feature is the ability to use voice-chat with your IM buddy which now almost becoming a de-facto standard in IM clients. Adding contact list to your IM client is as easy as putting their gmail id and wait for their response (much like yahoo’s and MSN).
But the interesting part is Google-talk uses Jabber/XMPP protocol instead of closed-protocol like other popular IM-providers. Unlike other IM service providers, Google actually is open about people using 3rdparty clients to connect to their servers.
The good news behind all of this is people now can connect to their google-talk accounts without worrying much about the availability of the IM clients in their respective platforms ;)