Ghost of a flea: The Stone Age of instant messaging

August 26, 2005

The Stone Age of instant messaging

Being anti-instant messaging in the first place, I am not certain what to make of Ken Fisher's review of the Google Talk beta.

Google Talk is clean and easy to use. It's also absent almost every feature found in other IM clients. Want to send a file? Pshaw! Want to have a group chat? You're too social! Want to view your previous chat sessions easily? Get outta here! Want little emoticons? Skins? Go bug somebody else! Google Talk is Spartan in the way that the Lacedemonians were Spartan: it seems ancient!

I will have a better idea what I think of the product once I have tried to get my mic to work with Google Talk's VOIP capability. My feeling is the product and its competitors are only going to hook people like me once different IM systems are capable of talking to each other.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 26, 2005 08:33 AM

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Comments

Every item Mr. Fisher mentions is, to my mind, not a bug, but a feature. I don't need an endless list of emoticons. I don't need group chat. I don't need file transfer (nor does my security group). I don't need chat logs.

Google Talk does IM more cleanly and simply than any other IM client out there, without forcing me to turn off eleventy-dozen options, and still sit through animated ads and sponsored suggestions that I should really get "Survivor" bulletins via IM. Bleah.

If Google added SMS integration, my life would be complete. Well, no, not really, but it's the one feature I'd most like to see. But it's a cherry on the frosting, not the cake itself.

Posted by: ***Dave at August 26, 2005 01:07 PM