Some announcements are surprising, while others are expected.
This is neither; although we didn’t know it was going to happen, it’s actually quite logical that the Google Talk Gadget would gain support for 19 more languages.
Google puts the number at 20, yet I’m standing by my belief that “English (UK)” really isn’t all that different from what we Americans speak.
The true 19 languages, then, are Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
If you want to use the Google Talk Gadget in one of these languages (or just want to see what it looks like), the company’s own Katya Rogers provided instructions on the Google Talkabout blog.
“To access the Google Talk Gadget in your language, go to the Google Talk homepage, select your language in the drop-down menu in the top right, and click on the ‘launch Google Talk Gadget’ link,” she wrote.
Rogers then continued, “Or you can simply add the Google Talk gadget to your iGoogle home page.” This also makes sense, as product integration seems to be an area in which Google’s trying to get ahead.
While Google’s RE<C announcement was frankly astonishing, sometimes it’s nice not to be surprised; the development related to the Google Talk Gadget, though far from groundbreaking, neatly proves this point.
