http://youtube.com/watch?v=oPTP3rXKHvc
Can't find it on "Add New Stuff" yet, but sure it soon will be added.
Looking forward to it. :)

Is it fake? Videochat?

It is not a fake, and it is not video chat. It's just that you can play youtube videos or see picaso pictures in it.

Anyway, it's live now, you can add it to IG at http://www.google.com/talk/

It's nice, but took very long to load. There's a small bug where access to the drop down menu is mostly lost.

it looks neat. but..

1) dont know a soul who uses GT.

2) anything that compromises load time is evil.

Really interresting ;)
Now, I will look at the XML code... ^^

> anything that compromises load time is evil.

Can't you just put it in a secondary tab, which will not load usually?

<<I will look at the XML code>>

It's Flash, but it's lovely.

The load time is a bit better for me now. The first time it loaded, it was taking some time for it to load all my gmail contacts. But now, it's loading faster.

Anyway, if you are worried about loading time just minimize it. Open it when you are ready to use it.

Great stuff, you can even add it to your pages, that means – any your pages. Google Talk module could be nice benefit for every community portal.

I find it interesting the way they've totally revamped the Google Talk sign-in "landing" page, to basically make it look like it's a Google Gadget, and nothing else. I guess that's what most google web apps are heading for – all to be part of the "IG" hub.

Anyone know if you need the client to load the gadget?

<<Anyone know if you need the client to load the gadget?>>

of course not

Love the look of this gadget! And I'd prefer it here to anywhere else as it's much easier to get to, (I've been having problems with GMail lately and the desktop version I just find weird.)
Wonder how many websites will actualy use this in their designs? Could be quite useful, Is there a way to get it in the Firefox Sidebar?

<<I wonder if Google will throw in advertisement in the future to make some money from all this chat traffic?>>
You mean like this?[ http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050828] :-)

Heh...

By the way, what's the use of including the gadget on one's homepage if you can't make it point to specific chat rooms (rooms which are unique to the site)? Right now it's just annoying because my chat will be "split" into different web pages if multiple pages have the chat.

That´s not that true. It could be really useful at any social network. And in connection with Gmail for your domain absolutely. You can provide something more for your community.

this is really cool!!

thanks Haochi! :)

Does anyone know ..wat are the 3 pull down options ? It is getting hiddent behind the actually gadet dispaly..

> That´s not that true. It could be really useful
> at any social network.

Can you give me a use-case? Some practical example?

Right now, I'm getting the same chat window on the blog post where I included the gadget, as well as on my homepage... this kind of "splits" the chats I'm having.

It's nice, but doesn't work with Polish letters, so it's no way I could use this...

youre right /pd..
it happened to me too :/

plus, you cant see your full online contacts. (if you pass the maximum, which is 8) you need to press a "special button" in order to see your full online contacts.
(im currently having 13 online contact)

Yeah, it took me 20sec to add the same module on my netvibes page.

You just have to go to the Netvibes Ecosystem and search for an iframe module :
http://eco.netvibes.com/?type=module&q=iframe

Then, copy the widget link in it (http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client?fid=gtalk25&relay=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fig%2Fifpc_relay&host=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fig)

And voila :
http://www.flickr.com/photo.gne?id=421511292

[Fixed / updated links – Tony]

>> Anyone know if you need the client to load the gadget?
> of course not

No, but you do need the client installed to use the "Call" button.

> I find it interesting the way they've totally
> revamped the Google Talk sign-in "landing" page

Yeah, that's pretty stupid IMO that they are hiding Google Talk (standalone client). People looking for "the old" Google Talk on http://www.google.com/talk/ will have hard time finding it. All links to the program's homepage are now practically broken.
Web-based Gadget is something entirely different than standalone client, and I think aimed at different audience. I don't understand what they are doing with this homepage thing...

<<No, but you do need the client installed to use the "Call" button.>>
I have Google Talk running but still can't use the Call function. (Can't click on it)
By the way, if you haven't notice yet, you can actually use the "Tab" on your keyboard to switch between tabs.

I hope they add tabs to the desktop Google Talk client soon! I've been wondering when they would integrate Picassa's Hello! instant messaging features into Google Talk. All functions in the gadget seem to work fine for me.

Ludwik Trammer: I suppose Google is promoting the web client to better fit their web-based software image? Perhaps the desktop client will take center stage again after the initial promotion period has worn off. I'm not sure what you mean when you say the links to the program's homepage are "broken," though. Could you explain?

You can add Google Talk to Firefox's sidebar by adding URL
http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client?fid=gtalk0&relay=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com
to your bookmarks and than clicking "Load this in a sidebar" checkbox. Pretty neat effect...

screenshot: http://www.ludwik.trammer.pl/screens/googletalk.png

> I'm not sure what you mean when you say
> the links to the program's homepage are "broken," though.

Everybody that linked to this page wanted to link to the website of Google Talk, that is standalone windows program. Maybe they wanted their friends to install it, or made a list of IM programs for windows. Now their links, without their knowledge, points to the to entirely different product. I think you can consider them as somehow broken.

I don't want to promote my own idea, but I played with it for a while and I think Google Talk in browser sidebar is the best thing since yyy... the previous best thing ;) It's like Gmail Chat, but stays there always, whatever sites you are on.
Now I wait only for Polish keyboard support...

This gadget is nice. But what I would find very useful is a widget for personal websites/blogs which lets anyone start a chat or call to you, even without a Google account. Right now the user has to sign up/in with Google first, not everyone wants to do that.

If the widget could be used to contact the owner of the website/blog without having to sign in, there would be all kinds of purposes for it. For example it could be used to offer chat support to clients, connect it with offers on eBay, etc. Meebo offers this functionality, but unfortunately it doesn't connect to Google Talk.

Ludwik Trammer

Hey, this is great. I agree, having it in the Sidebar is best for me, too. Would be even better if you could activate the gadget with a shortcut. Do you know how to do this? Right now I have to show the sidebar first (Ctrl+B) and then click on the bookmark.

> Right now I have to show the sidebar first (Ctrl+B)
> and then click on the bookmark.

I'm not sure I understand... when you click on the bookmark sidebar opens automatically, you don't have to open sidebar first. Just place a bookmark with a sidebar option checked-in on your browser's toolbar (so it's easily accessible) and you are ready to go. As you may spotted on my screenshot I have my bookmarks on the... menubar. There are always a lot of free space there so I use it that way...

Phillip: There are two possibilities.

I don´t know whether there is an API for Gmail for your domain. If so, you can automatically create Gmail/Google Talk account for your users and use it for chat communication among them.

Next possibility means that people will register Google account just for that functionality at your website. That´s also possible, I think.

What we really need I think is the ability to use chat rooms within Google Talk, and then allow webmasters to modify a gadget so that it will only point to a single chat room, and nothing else. Maybe the chat room could even be automatically the domain the gadget is loaded on. Then it would useful as website-gadget, sort of what's the "shoutbox" on some web forums. (Or this thing here at Google Blogoscoped: http://blogoscoped.com/chat/).

I think webmasters at least should be able to pass some commands (as URL's parameters) to the gadget, as they are able with many IM desktop clients (I'm thinking about special "protocols" for passing commands to desktop programs like "aim:", "icq:" or "gg:") to automatically open chat tab, or question "do you like to add [...] to your contacts list?"...

Of course in the future they may add conference rooms capability from Jabber (most other clients already have it), but it's a bigger thing.

I agree with the chat room idea. To me, putting the current gadget on a website/blog doesn't make sense, why would anyone want to go to some blog to chat. Even putting the gadget on ig is a bit strange as that page is a place from where you go to other places and not to look at all day.

Phillip: I don´t agree. I have a small Czech community website about fantasy and RPG (www.aragorn.cz). I see that there are two kinds of functions which communities need. Chat (I mean chatrooms), discussions, articles etc.. all that stuff are unique for your website, there is no benefit of having the same system which is used anywhere outside (moreless). There are few exceptions – it doesn´t make sense to provide e.g. webmail since Gmail is by far the best choice.

Second kind of fuctions – and IM is the speciment case – are better when their could be used across communities. When I have a community of lets say 1000 people, why they should use special IM just for that network while they are probably part of more such communities-

Different question is whether there is a need of decentralised communities, why not to have only one big social site – MySpace, Google Groups, anything. I don´t believe that one day every indepedent community will die. Having seperate community with one topic, concrete admins, identity/domain is an advantage. So in my view there will always be some trade-off between self-made fuctions and APIs etc, between huge social networks and small closed communities.

I would rather want to be not logged in at the beginning, and just to click on a button "log in" if I want to be connected to GTalk, without being log out of my Google Account, of course.

Everyone is talking about the Pros of this Gadget here... but i have some cons....

the major problem is that google should name it as GmailTalk gadget or gmail chat gadget coz you know why ?

"It doesn't allow non gmail email address users to chat with eventhough they have their account register with google accounts and able to chat and call in ordinary gtalk client

* This widget doesn't allow Google Apps for your Domain email holders to login in....

Why google isn't allowing non gmail email addresses ?

> Why google isn't allowing non gmail email addresses?

What? Are you saying that people can login into "normal Google Talk client with address within non-google domain using password form Google Accounts? That would be crazy!
Google Talk/Gmail Chat is part of a big IM network called Jabber. In Jabber network everybody has a control over addresses in their domain, just like with e-mail. Google can't just bring in into the network accounts within other people domains...

"We've also added a few new features to make your chats a bit more colorful, like the ability to view YouTube videos and Picasa Web Albums photos in your chats."

Does anyone see this feature ?? I am not seeing nada

I actually use Google Chat a lot more than talk, I wish there was a gadget for my home page for google chat. (Or is there one?)

<<
* This widget doesn't allow Google Apps for your Domain email holders to login in....>>

That really is nasty.. I won't be able to use it until it does..

Ludwik: No, when you use Google Apps for your domain, you can use Google Talk with usernameyourdomain.com login.

> "We've also added a few new features to make your chats a bit more colorful, like the ability to view YouTube videos and Picasa Web Albums photos in your chats."

>Does anyone see this feature ?? I am not seeing nada

Just copy and paste the URL into your chat window.

> No, when you use Google Apps for your domain, you can use Google Talk
> with username[put at-character here]yourdomain.com login.

Yes, I know, but you have to configure this domain's DNS server to allow Google do this. I'm doing this myself.
I believe Sankar was talking about something else. He said that people with normal Google Accounts could use their non-google e-mail addresses as JabberID (id in Google Talk and the rest of Jabber network), doesn't he? Or maybe I got it wrong?

<<Does anyone see this feature ?? I am not seeing nada>>
Just copy and paste the links, such as this one...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wa7u0a9pUSs

<< I believe Sankar was talking about something else. He said that people with normal Google Accounts could use their non-google e-mail addresses as JabberID (id in Google Talk and the rest of Jabber network), doesn't he? Or maybe I got it wrong? >>

That's what I thought he meant. However, people signing up for Google Talk using non-Gmail addresses have to choose a nickname which actually displays in the Gmail and Google Talk contacts list as being an @gmail.com address, so I guess those people would just need to enter that as their username.

yeah tony and ludwik

what i meant is that some of my friends use non gmail address registered with google accounts to login into their gmail
Example:

younameyahoo.com with google accounts password which they use to login into google talk client.. but this widget here doesn't allow that kind of login.

this widget allows only users with @gmail.com accounts... which means even if you have GAFYDS email address u can still login into google talk client but you cannot login into this widget....

i think now u can understand the problem....

Sankar, I've just signed in to the Google Talk gadget using a non-gmail.com account and it worked fine. Just tell them to login to their Google Account and then sign in to the gadget. I've not been able to get it to work with Google Apps accounts though.

thanks Tony... i am going to write a short tutorial for lazy orkut users who feel lazy to download google talk ... they can use this web-based gadget to chat with....