Google Blogoscoped

Forum

Google Group Chat Feature Released  (View post)

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

Friday, June 22, 2007
17 years ago7,577 views

At 11:?? Ionut invited me to one of these. Unfortuneately I was away and didn't get it till 3:15

Benjamin Jancewicz [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

But what about on Gmail? It doesn't seem to work on there...

SQ89 [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

I've posted some details on my blog:
http://blog.sq89.net/2007/06/more-about-google-talks-group-chat.html

J. McNair [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Hmm...
Personally, I LIKE having a lightweight Jabber client that knows about my GData. I hope the rumor is true and that an updated Talk program comes, as I don't wish to ALWAYS have to start my web browser to keep in touch. Start web browser, detach into window, and leave open....this is no better than leaving your home page on your GMail inbox. Also, I like the voice chat feature. Conference calling would be nice as well.

Now, I DO hope that they build the full Flash Google Talk gadget into Gmail chat, even if Google has to remove features for security reasons. Better still, give people another choice: Gmail+Talk, Gmail+chat, Gmail, GMail Basic. This would be cumbersome, but a needed choice for people who cannot or will not use Adobe Flash player.

Finally, Picasa Hello, anyone? Can the Google Talk team please integrate this into Talk? Could you imagine how awesome it would be if you could chat with someone while you were browsing their Picasa web albums without leaving Picasa or Picasa Web? How about Youtube? Google Talk everywhere, I say! I think Yahoo could do the same thing with Flickr + Yahoo Messenger, which would have me using Y! Messenger again...

http://www.hello.com for this seemingly abandoned piece of neat software.

SQ89 [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

There already is some Picasa and YouTube integration in the Talk Gadget.

I think the current seperation is quite nice:
- Talk Client for enabling direct use of the pc's hardware (microphone, webcam, hard disk for file transfer)
- Gmail Chat for basic communication, with an extended address book
- Talk Gadget for fun stuff like emoticons and videos

stefan2904 [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1106/589355695_1131b90657_o.jpg

stefan2904 [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

youtube inside:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1188/591382862_a17b059c9d_o.jpg

(not new, i know!)

bradsucks [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

It's kinda weak that they neglect the standalone Google Talk so badly. It makes it feel like dead software, that their heart isn't really in it.

todd [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Not surprisingly, this doesn't work with Google hosted domains. You can add the Talk widget to your domain's start page, but it asks you to use your regular Google account to log in. I really wish they would do something about that disconnect between your domain login/apps and the regular google/gmail stuff.

Pharod [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

The problems I have with the Flash version is that it is slower than the desktop client, it has no voice capabilities, no email notification and (why I don't use it) the browser must be open. Oh, and if you have a big enough list of people online, they can't be all shown at the same time on the main window and there are no scrollbars.

stefan2904 [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

there are scrollbars!

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> the browser must be open

I'm curious, why don't you want to open a browser?

Jared Cherup [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]J McNair :
Hello was pretty neat. But you can share pictures just as easily with the Google Talk client.

Pharod [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

1. As J. mentioned, it is a process that you may not want to do at the moment (Start web browser, detach into window, and leave open).
2. There are plenty of cases when the browser needs restarting.
3. See the first point.
4. It annoys me :)

The other feature I forgot to mention in my last comment was the lack of file transfer.

x [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

> > the browser must be open

> I'm curious, why don't you want to open a browser?

firefox memory leaks..!!

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Jeesh! FF isn't that bad, what size ram have you got? I suppose it doesn't matter to me with my new computer.

paul88 [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

I don't like to use the browser based either, I never use it. And it is not about how fast your computer is, I also have a new computer. I just think is silly to have to launch a browser to use a chat thingy, especially since I use the voice feature (quite a bit) of the desktop version, and will have to switch anyways. For me the browser based is just a fashionable toy, that I will use if I am traveling.

lol [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I tried , but it seemed not work worldwide yet.
keep waiting

MarkM [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

at times with something like 70 tabs to restore in firefox, opening a browser just for some light chatting is a pain. also, the lack of a dedicated client on mac and linux is a much MUCH bigger pain – gtalk's file transfer utility is the best of the bunch out of all the utilities i've ever used, but few of my friends use windows (and i even stopped using windows a few months ago – ubuntu + (sigh...the shame) osx all the way here). one thing i miss is the desktop gtalk client for its great filetransfer capabilities.

Mysterius [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I still have faith in that leaked screenshot of a new Talk client interface with phone calls.

Haochi [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I would rather to have video conferencing than the phone call feature ... which is likely to cost $$ while video conferencing does not...

Neither matters to me actually, I am just saying stuff, LOL. :)

GT Staff [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

At last. Conference (I like the name that google named it though – Group chat. Classic google no-frill simplicity in naming products / features) has been one of the pet peeves that my friends have whenever I invite them to try Google Talk. This is good news, specially for productivity. Group chat is a productivity factor in online communications. On another note, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Google is making the gadget version of the talk client its priority over the other two versions (dhtml in gmail, and desktop talk client). I have to agree with the comments though that the lack of voice in the web client is something that should be addressed soon.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> at times with something like 70 tabs to restore
> in firefox, opening a browser just for some light chatting is
> a pain

What happens? Why 70 tabs?

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]lol

Where are you? It works in Ireland.

MarkM [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Sorry Philipp, I should've been more clear as to what the annoyance was. Having ~70 tabs to restore from a previous browsing session: often times I want to do further research on something, or was not finished reading something, or a variety of other reasons. In these situations, happening all simultaneously, I elect to keep tabs open rather than to bookmark sites, since it's easier to return to a working environment rather than recreate it. But after a restart (usually from a memory leak – if firefox takes more than 200mb of ram and greater than 10-15% of processor utilization), it can take a lot of time to reload those tabs, especially over a slow connection (some of it is cached, which helps). If i'm on battery power I don't want to have to tax my system with a huge firefox session...a desktop client (usually a Gaim-based client is what I use) is useful in this situation – lower cpu, hdd, and wifi utilization. Of course, I could also just open up an alternate browser, say Opera, but that's missing the point of the biggest draw to Gtalk – file transfer, for me. Flash is also really unoptimized code, although I haven't ever directly compared a flash chat client to a desktop chat client (I have my suspicions as to which would win, however – desktop). Moreover, I prefer to avoid having multiple windows open in firefox – it's what I'm comfortable with, usage-wise. There's lots of reasons...but I suppose I'll just have to develop a feature rich cross platform jabber client all by myself one day, that the whole world will switch to. :)

stefan2904 [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

~70 tabs? wtf?

isn't gaim a 'cross platform jabber client'?

MarkM [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

There's a lot of inefficient code in gaim (or pidgin or whatnot), I've done a little preliminary research on cleaning up something like xmpp4r but nothing to toot my horn about. It's tough cutting power requirements on something that needs to regularly ping for updates (new messages, status changes of buddies, etc).

Anyways, yeah, I've always got a lot of tabs open...usually documentation on various stuff i'm working with (docs, code, examples, and troubleshooting info for microarchitectural simulators for instance) mixed with wikipedia articles for (sometimes dubious) educational fun.

Zim [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

My father uses lots of tabs (but he also uses opera browser as I do).
I still preffer to use executable apps instead of web apps if using my computer. For travel it's cool.

Ken Flannery [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

What they should do is build this group feature into... I dunno... Google Groups? This would be particularly useful in groups designed for getting help, the Google Maps API group comes to mind as an example. And you know how often in chatrooms people just say "Google It!" in response to a question... google ajax search right there on the side, bonus. The sidebar could also load up messages posted in the threads so when someone asked a question "live" that had already been dealt with, someone in the know could point them to that rather than clog up the chat.

J. McNair [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]Jared
Oh wait, you're right. The most important feature of Hello IS in fact the photo sharing, and it does work with Flickr and Picasa Web. The internets can be assured that I shall finally stop ranting about this....
...when these features come to the DESKTOP client.

[put at-character here]Ken
Yes, I think that would also be awesome, even if it was limited. Actually, I want all of Google groups built into GMail as another tab on the left side.
Throw in Google Reader as well.

Forum home

Advertisement

 
Blog  |  Forum     more >> Archive | Feed | Google's blogs | About
Advertisement

 

This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum!