Google to Combine Google Talk Features With Gmail

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In it's ever increasing endeavors to lure users to its services, search engine giant Google Inc. has announced plans to join its popular Gmail e-mail service with its Google Talk Instant Messaging service. By combining services Gmail users will be able to see a list of their Google Talk contacts and will be able to tell whether a contact is available for Instant Messaging. Google hopes that by combining services it will make it easier for users to stay in contact and will draw more users to both its Gmail and Google Talk services.

Of course the hopes for Google are that by increasing the user base of these services it will also increase its income from advertising, from which it profited $1.5 billion on sales of $6.1 billion in 2005. All in all, it’s a win-win situation, or as close as you can get to one in this day and age. The user gets increased functionality of free services and the draw to invite their friends and family members to use the services, and Google in return gets more ads displayed which of course equals increased revenues. Page ads I can deal with, as long as they don't resort to pop-up/under ads, I won't complain.

According to google vice president of product management Salar Kamangar, the new integration of Google Talk features will begin showing up in Gmail accounts on Tuesday and should be available to all Gmail users within the next few weeks.

News source: KTVB.com / Associated Press

(3 replies) #1 Riz360 on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:14

How many people still use Google Talk every day?

I found that none of my friends used it and stuck to MSN, so theres no point in me having it

#1.1 lbmouse on 07 Feb 2006 - 19:49

My entire company 30,000+ plus virtually all my clients. You will too once you get out into the real world.

#1.2 Sierra Sonic on 07 Feb 2006 - 20:33

So the real world uses a beta client at a company, while a rock solid stable release of windows messenger 5.*. isnt being used at your company/real world?

Seems about right.

#1.3 Disjunto on 07 Feb 2006 - 23:36

google talk is lighter and simpler...... and WM is just awful and ugly looking

(2 replies) #2 xsnslaine on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:22

I still use it every day, i find it really good as its simplistic, it does exactly what i need it for..

#2.1 mzhao on 07 Feb 2006 - 22:25

Yep. Google Talk suits my style. I can't imagine going back to those big, bloated windows that other messengers give you.

#2.2 mr.roberts on 08 Feb 2006 - 02:42

I wanted a very simple text-messenging client and Google Talk fits my needs very well. I converted my sister (who, same as me, formerly used MSN) to Google Talk and we use it to talk or text each other.

(1 reply) #3 mad_onion on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:25

has anyone actually had this added to gmail yet cause it isnt in mine?

#3.1 Subaru on 07 Feb 2006 - 21:55

Here it is

(1 reply) #4 Trade Wind on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:36

Accoding to Nielsen NetRatings, Google Talk has 866,000 users in the US (as of DEC). MSN Messenger has 27 Million.

I find the buzz over this feature silly. I wake up this morning...perform my usual tech search on my favourite news search engine (google fwiw), and every single newspaper in the country seems to publish the news of Google merging IM w/ email. Hotmail has done this since late 2003...and last year integrated Web Messenger. Why is this big news?

#4.1 shanepitman on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:39

It's not that it's "big news" it's just news. No more so than any other software / services company making changes to its offerings. It is news worthy though, as it shows an effort on Googles' part to provide more of what users want in the hopes of increasing its user base and in turn its revenues.

(6 replies) #5 dextro on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:38

I have this In my gmail account already... Can't see how I'll use it though :?

PS: When will google add more features into talk? it doesn't even have emoticons for crying out loud :|

#5.1 mad_onion on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:47

oh you have it already? it says they arent going to do them all at the same time so i wonder when i will get mine?

#5.2 dextro on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:51

Just noticed it's cripled still, I can only keep logs and not "ajax" IM... cooming soon sign for that :$

#5.3 Croquant on 07 Feb 2006 - 16:14

Gtalk doesn't have emoticons becasue they wanted to keep it simple. No useless junk, no bloat, no annoying advertising. Just plain, smiple chat. Like how it used to be.
It's got voice chat. It's got text chat. It can e-mail a record of the chat to your gmail acount. It's free. What more do you want?

#5.4 xpgeek on 07 Feb 2006 - 18:31

File Transfers support thats what. Couldn't care less about the rest of the junk but I use file transfer on msn messenger at least once a day.

#5.5 aristofeles on 07 Feb 2006 - 21:06

There is NO WAY i'll use a messaging that don't support offline messages. The funny thing is: with the new feature, if you send an offline message, it WILL get logged on both emails, but the recipient will never know unless he search for it.

#5.6 tapo on 09 Feb 2006 - 17:18

Yeah, the lack of offline messages is a pain, especially considering they're a standard feature of all other Jabber clients/servers. I really, really miss that feature when using Google Talk.

They'll hopefully add it soon though, along with file transfer (which I personally don't care for).

(1 reply) #6 Munki on 07 Feb 2006 - 15:53

This is pretty neat. Gmail is quite nice although there aren't alot of users just yet. However, things will change as more and more features are added. Hopefully, they'll add webcam support soon.

#6.1 IGx89 on 07 Feb 2006 - 16:07

Hopefully they'll add AIM support soon too; then I might actually use AIM a bit, instead of just Xfire and MSN

#7 lawtai on 07 Feb 2006 - 16:11

yea i don't know too many people who still use google talk

#8 qdave on 07 Feb 2006 - 16:20

its good to use it at work, since its so clean and small.

anyway great step on google

#9 SamNeeds on 07 Feb 2006 - 17:03

I saw this on GMAIL earliar when i signed out - To me, it just looks too cluttered.

(1 reply) #10 Porp on 07 Feb 2006 - 17:27

boring. hardly worth front page news.
Hotmail has done this for year's. Thank's to 'Google Talk' we have gone back in time.

It's like buying a simple, no colour, no feature Nokia from 5 year's ago and using it today. In this day and age people like having Mobile TV, Mobile Music, Text Messaging, Games, Picture Messaging, Video Messaging, Emoticons. It let's them express themselves which Google Talk definately does not do.

#10.1 Disjunto on 07 Feb 2006 - 23:40

thats not what everyone wants, i prefer to spend next to nothing on a basic phone than something that does loads of unrequired stuff. my mobile is used to txt's and actually phoning people. i don't want a bigger chunkier phone with stupid unrequired sliding bits or whatever to do that.

like with IM, i don't want a fancy looking IM program that has all these "amazing" features that i don't actually use. I only use IM for conversations that are more urgent than email... so Google Talk does tha job

#11 macro on 07 Feb 2006 - 20:21

You know what would be funny?

If we made a poll to see how many people care about this and think it appropriate to be on the front page. I bet it would be like 80-90% saying it is relevant, and 10 percent saying it's boring.

#12 Angel Blue01 on 07 Feb 2006 - 22:13

I know one person who uses Google Talk I refused to sign up just for him. He is also the only person who uses Yahoo IM bit at least I already had that account.

#13 bid1 on 07 Feb 2006 - 23:07

How did Hotmail do this years ago? My understanding is that you cannot chat on msn without some version of msn installed on the pc. I like msn but I think microsoft can do without the ads and the bloatware. There is at least 3 or 4 buttons on msn messenger trying to get you click on them and buy something.
NOt to mention stuff like the " Display MSN Today when Messenger starts.." and the "Allow Microsoft to collect anonymous info.. " and the likes which are enabled by default. Your typical user will never think to go disable these annoying "features".

I like this better. Some of us are not allowed to install software at work and this comes in handy.

(1 reply) #14 chanvw on 07 Feb 2006 - 23:15

I always thought I was missing out on the "new" Gmail features... but it turns out that you need to have your language set as English (US) for the stuff to show. Come on Google, bring the cool stuff to people using other languages!

#14.1 [M] on 11 Feb 2006 - 03:21

My thoughts exactly! I also found out that when I was using a different language, but people were talking about new features which I couldn't seem to locate, untill I changed the language to En(US), then the new features were all around.

They should bring in the new features for every language!

(1 reply) #15 travis.cd on 08 Feb 2006 - 06:22

none of my friends use anything but msn messenger, therefore that is what i stick to. id like to try google talk, but with noone to talk to its useless to me (atm)

#15.1 fobban on 08 Feb 2006 - 11:03

I haven't got many friends that use Google Talk either

I still have the program installed though, because it makes a neat popup when i get new emails and it uses about no resources (0% CPU and 6MB RAM) so it doesn't really matter if it's running or not. I'm hoping I will get more contacts on it though!

#16 Rock-Lee on 10 Feb 2006 - 01:59

it's now complety done check www.gmail.com

#17 DN2004 on 11 Feb 2006 - 23:17

only a few people have a gmail account so its pointless even using google talk everyone uses MSN Messenger

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