In a recent email interview the Google Talk team revealed to Murdok their future plans for Google Talk and the Google Talk Gadget.
While Google Talk is being promoted in Gmail the team also pointed to a variety of other areas where it is currently available. The areas include Gmail Chat where it is integrated inside Gmail; on mobile devices there is a Google Talk client for Blackberry, Sony mylo personal communicator and the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. Google Talk also has an integrated feature on their social networking site Orkut.
When it comes to the Google Talk Gadget the team had this to say,” We’re particularly excited about the Google Talk Gadget because it opens up Google Talk to any website owner who wants to put chat capability directly on their site. And just like all the other Google Talk apps, it pulls in users’ own contacts and saves their chats in Gmail. It can also display previews of YouTube videos and Picasa WebAlbums — new functions enabled by this particular flavor of GoogleTalk.”
The strategy to attract more users to the Google Talk Gadget include featuring it on the Google Talk homepage and adding it to the searchable directory of gadgets for the Google Personalized Home Page. In addition as the Google Talk Gadget gains more traction on third-party web pages more users will be exposed to it.
When asked what features users request the most for Google Talk they said, “ We’ve most often heard that users want a unified contact list and a unified archive of their chat sessions that live across all the instances of Google Talk they use — whether in Gmail, as the standalone Talk client, or on mobile devices. So unifying contacts and conversations has been one of our major focuses.”
On what Google Talk brings to the table for the uninitiated the team said their focus is on allowing users to have choice and flexibility to communicate. They support open standards for instant messaging and voice over IP along with interoperability among third parties. Another advantage the team sees is with text chat users are not tied to one PC and can bring their chats and buddy lists with them wherever they go.
A close second is the benefit of integration with Gmail. The team explained,” Users don’t have to remember whether they were chatting or emailing with their mom or their work contacts; all the messages are archived, organized in conversation threads, and easily searchable in Gmail.And since users can chat with their contacts within Gmail, they can easily switch back and forth between email and instant messaging, depending on their needs at any moment.
