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Could IM Be The Next Step For Google?
Rob_Warwick writes "Silicon.com has released an article theorizing that Google might be thinking about releasing an Instant Message client. Between a google_im:// protocol embedded in the Google Desktop Search, and their acquisition of Picasa and their IM client this summer, it almost sounds possible."
Seems like Google are moving away from static browse-only-when-you-want-to information provision to dynamic, in-your-face services. Just some examples: email, alerts (like this third party) and SMS. In all cases, Google are getting a more dynamic relationship with their customers - giving more and (as they no doubt hope) advertising more in return.
Between software, browsers, and now IM clients, sometimes I wonder if the Slashdot editors actually believe that Google will make these peices of software, or if they're just trying to bait Google into registering a bunch of un-needed domains.
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IM, how original... but I guess they can add their own twist to it.
Google's reputation was built from their search engine. Not exactly an original idea, but they did it better than anybody else. Gmail, web-based mail... Not very original either, but they've done something with it that nobody else has. So isn't it feasible that they could revolutionize IM the same way?
With all of the great ideas that come out of Google, I believe they can do anything.
as long as they play nice and get past the legal hurdles; interoperability is key.
no, not like trillian.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
And I for one welcome our new information wielding overlords.
They know what we look for on the internet, where we are browsing (with their new browser), what's on our computers (with their new desktop search tool), whats in our inbox (gmail), and now what we talk about to our friends through IM. Perhaps we should outsource the Directory of Central Intelligence position to Google? All it would cost us is a few text-only adds on any reports it sends up to the White House.
that would fucking suck.
1. No feedback on message delivery.
2. Bandwidth overhead introduced by error correction/checking (UDP is the wrong protocol)
3. Central server still needed to record IP addresses to pass to clients.
4. Massive bandwidth outlay on connection. (Modem user has to send buddy image to all 100 buddies online).
5. It wouldnt work throught a NAT firewall.
6. You wouldnt know if you had become disconnected.
7. You couldnt log on from any machine (ala msn, icq), because no central server to give you your contacts list.
In short i think your idea sucks in SO many ways. It would be suck a step back. Serverless UDP is not a scaleable communications system. It sucks for P2P and would for IM too.
If you want to consider more intelligent message delivery system, consider networks like OpenFastTrack.
Dom.
use Blunt::Instrument;
Well, there may be hacks.. but for a TECH company with BILLIONS in the bank - why - oh why - is there no forward momentum, develop and thinking in regards to capitalizing on the linux market?
Sure the protocol will probable be hacked into gaim or kopete, but thats not enough.
The web is supposed to be platform independant - introduce cross platform tools google! Please!!!
That's probably what people said about the free webmail market when gmail was coming out. Google knows how to provide value in slick, fast, low-bloat products that do one thing and do it well. That's why gmail is the best free webmail there is. And that's why, if google did decide to jump into the IM market, their product would be a real contender.
I would be really happy if a big company as Google would establish a standardized IM. By "standardized" I mean that they should use an open and well documented protocol, such as XMPP (aka "Jabber", see RFC 3920-3923).
"That's probably what people said about the free webmail market when gmail was coming out."
Yes, however all email is inter-operable. You can send email from whysanity@gmail.com to whysanity@slashdot.org and it works.
IM is a completly different beast: AIM doesn't talk to MSN doesn't talk to Y! doesn't talk to ICQ. There is no single standard that allows whysanity@aim to send messages to whysanity@gim. This is why I find it hard to believe they would create a unique service without making it interoperable with others (or at least single client like gaim).
IIRC, monopolies in and of themselves are not bad. Practices that strongarm other companies out of competing with them are the things you should look out for. Monopolies can exist because their product is superior to everyone else's. As long as they don't start pulling Microsoft bullying tactics on everyone else, I think we're ok.
It's called capitalism, and it ain't necessarily a bad thing.
Google showed up with a better search engine, and is adding new services with that as a good foundation. But what's to stop somebody else from doing the same to Google? If Google doesn't continue to provide the best product, somebody will replace them. So if they stay on top, great. If somebody else comes along, hooray from the new guy.
It seems like users of free internet services are pretty fickle. It's easy to switch. You don't have to worry about compatibility with your other software. You don't have to use the same search engine as other people in your office, or your clients. Some of the factors that allow Microsoft's monopoly are just not there with internet services. Thus, I think even if Google maintains a huge majority of the market share, they have to keep their eye on the ball, keep improving their software, and not get too evil. Otherwise, somebody better will come along.
I may twist orthodoxy to partly justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.
Wouldn't it be much easier and more cost effective if they would just announce "hey gmail users, now your id & pwd work on our Jabber IM server!" It would instantly become the most popular Jabber server on the net, and the only effort would be in creating a cluster resilient enough to handle the onslaught, something they seem to be "pretty good" at. Wasn't that one of the original design goals of Jabber? So people could reuse their email addresses as IM uids, and service providers can host their own IM servers?
Finally, for everyone pushing Gaim, don't forget to mention Gaim-encryption to go along with it. It staples SSL and its own key management over top of any protocol Gaim supports. No SSL proxies or shyte like that. The chats are encrypted the entire path, client-to-client.
Intelligent Life on Earth
"If Google does release an IM, I suspect that it's not an end in itself. There would be no financial or tactical reason to release an IM."
Well, let's take a quick look as good ol' Microsoft. Last I heard, the only profitable products they produce are Windows and Office. So what's with everything else they produce? Brand recognition and product lock-in.
Although I've never specifically paid a single penny to Google, I'd given them a few bucks through sponsered links. And everytime someone is looking for some service that Google provides, I point them in that direction (search, news, froogle, gmail, etc.) It's just like som Microsoftite suggesting MS software for every solution although other better solutions might exist - it's a dedication culture the company has instilled through brand recognition and quality producst/services.
"Personally, I don't want to log and search my AIM conversations. Most of that is quick chat or non-sense. "
While true it is also sad. Back when people wrote letters you used to take some time and put thought into it. I have kept some letters from friends that went a way too college or just moved. Look at the book Grumbles from the Grave or the letters that Gallieo's daughter wrote to him the see the value of keeping letters. Even the letters of "normal" people can provide an insite in the times they lived in or to make them more human.
IM and email has take a lot of that away. It is just to easy to write a quick email or im that friend on the other side of the country. Little thought is put into it and it has the life of a mayfly. It is here and then gone.
Google may be going the future a great service by keeping those emails. If they keep them for a very long time that is. Who knows? In 50 years we may get a copy of all of a Presidents emails from when he was a teenager. The same with his IM messages.
Google could become the keepers of history. The new library of Alexandrea.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
do they radio up some of that index to their main search engine for the world to see?
Why would you think they'd do that in the first place? What would it gain them to be exposing people's personal documents to the outside web?
I doubt they would do this but has anyone found any text proving (or disproving ) this?
http://desktop.google.com/about.html#privacy
"9. What about my privacy? Does Google Desktop Search share my content with anyone?
We treat your privacy with the utmost respect. The Google Desktop Search program does not make your computer's content accessible to Google or anyone else. You can learn more by reading the Desktop Search privacy policy. "
Please, i'm not saying Google can do no wrong (and I don't work for them), but do some digging before you start throwing theories like that out there.
At the point where they attempt to 'cut off the oxygen supply' of competitors, using any means necessary.
At the point where they take over and then strangle whole markets, just to maintain their dominance in others. (Internet explorer versus Mozilla being the perfect example, promoted heavily for free, then dropped when dominance was established). Watch out for an attempt at more of the same with XAML.
At the point where they attempt to force partners to sign exclusive and secret contracts locking out competition (BeOS).
At the point where they deliberately keep their protocols and formats closed to keep customers locked in. (Word and office suite).
Market share does not make a monopolist, abuse of market share does.
Yes people shouldn't blindly accept everything google does, or allow themselves to be locked into services with them, but that shows no sign of happening as yet.
Isn't it a faster way for someone who hacked into your machine to know more about you and your habits? All he needs to do is to spend some 5 minutes to go through your indexed data. The most scary part is that the desktop thingie only works on already insecure windoze. Just run a search of your name on the desktop search...it not only returns docs on your machine - it also lits the all your internet emails - thanks to the temporary internet explorer files. I smell conspiracy. It's like a house with defective locks having a map at the doorstep pointing with a listing of all your expensive items and locations.
Maybe I'm a freak, but I don't throw information away. I don't just write "quick" little emails, either.
However, I can already search my IM logs, email, and other forum output (irc, etc) with a nice tool that has very little to do with google. In fact, some of you might have it as well, try the following commands: 'which grep' and 'man grep' and see what I mean.
::jafomatic
IM is the electronic equivalent of a spoken conversation, not a written letter. Do you record everything you say? Of course not, so why should IM be different?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I knew someone was going to compare Google to Microsoft at some point. Here's the huge difference: People always hated Microsoft! Somewhere the notion developed that Microsoft started out as a great little company and turned evil, or that everyone used to love them "back in the day" but now hates them. Both of these are false. Microsoft started out by charging money for what others were willing to give away for free (BASIC for example) and they were always hated for it. There was never a period in Microsoft's history where they were even remotely as revered as Google is today. Google has enriched the world, while Microsoft has a long history of using the world to make the company richer, from day one.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Those on the mac should check out Adium. I haven't tried Miranda, but Adium has all the "pretty" features of Trillian, the power of GAIM (and much more flexibility) and has this neat feature that some IM client vendors still haven't figure out: it lets you keep the windows from automatically popping up. Nice when you're on a coding bender or your friend sends you an in-line copy of tubgirl while you're giving a demo to your boss.
IM and email has take a lot of that away. It is just to easy to write a quick email or im that friend on the other side of the country. Little thought is put into it and it has the life of a mayfly. It is here and then gone.
I'm not entirely sure what I think about this issue, but let me play devil's advocate a little bit.
You're right in the short sense. If you compare any single IM I send to any single letter I have ever written, the IM message is going to come up short. But then, that's the value of something like IM: It permits instant feedback. With a letter, you would put a lot of thought and time into it because you had to. Once you send that puppy, it might take a week just to get to your recipient, a day or two for them to read and find time to reply, and another week for your response to hit home. In short, there was a two week lag. This obviously means you want to make sure you say everything you've had to say in one pass.
But I wonder--if instead of looking over a single message or something of IM, if you took the sum of all the messages with somebody for a day or two--would it still seem to come up short? I admit it. I have a lot of really silly IM conversations, just goofing around and being silly with friends, and believe it or not the things that come out in conversations like that often mean more to me than the prepared stuff. All that's true. I don't know about anybody else, but I have also had some extremely deep conversations in IM. I've helped people with girlfriend problems, I've helped friends through depression, helped some younger friends deal with things like having to move and potentially leave their friends behind. Or hell, just listened if they had a bad day and want to do a little complaining. All in real-time.
The language might not be as flowery, the threads of conversation might not be thought out for days in advance--but I think all the emotion and compassion is there. And it provides a method for discussing things as they happen. Maybe we're being silly one minute and the next they find out something that devastates them--boom, that conversation changes in an instant. Certainly can't do that in a letter.
In a lot of senses, I prefer IM because it's more personal. In terms of communications, it's the next best thing to being there with the person or maybe getting them on the phone (which isn't always feasible). It's personal, it's friendly, it's a couple of friends shooting the breeze and seeing what topics come up. Unlike letters, where there is usually some pre-planned "motive" (in quotes because I don't want to imply anything sinister) to writing, where the speech is pedantic and formal.
About the only thing that bothers me about IM in particular and the Internet in general is the writing. I don't think I need to go into any details about that with this crowd. On the other hand, I have friends across the world who, thanks to this medium, I get to talk to every day. If that means putting up with a few Internet-isms, I consider it a small price.
After all, the purpose of IM and email and writing letters are all the same: to allow people to communicate. I'm not sure it ultimately matters on what "intellectual level" we're communicating on so long as the writer and the recipient understand the message and the meaning behind it.
And I've really gone on a ramble without much of a point. Sorry. Just kind of dropping my thoughts on "paper" and seeing where it leads.
A proprietary protocol has profit advantages over shared ones, in the short term. However, a large company putting their weight behind such a protocol isn't a guarantee of success, given MSN and AOL and Yahoo and other well-established chat providers. Taken another way, publishing the protocol and finding some other way to profit (relevant ads, increased market share for other profitable products, etc) would be a way to gain share rapidly. So, there could be other reasons than 'don't be evil' in favor of choice #1 above. But the only motive for guarding a protocol (choice #2) would be putting profit ahead of the customer's interests.
Incidentally, I still think google pretty much is breaking down. One out of ten searches I do gets dominated by astroturfed commercial sites with nothing relevant. Try finding an impartial web-hosting review site, for example. A competitor could eat google's lunch simply by allowing trusted reviewers to flag any site that seems too high on the list. If it is there improperly (by creating whole hierarchies of interlinked websites), prune it and any egregious peers. Get us back to where the top link is nearly always useful.
From news.com:
"A Google representative said the protocol flagged by Smith does not hint at a pending Google IM product; rather, it is merely a component used to capture IM data from America Online Instant Messenger and make it searchable on the desktop."
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
They seem to enjoy springing stuff on people from nowhere.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
"IM is the electronic equivalent of a spoken conversation, not a written letter."
That is more or less the point. Cell phones, VoIP, and cheap long distance has the same effect. Conversation has become the our standard from of communication. You gain interaction but you loose depth and clarity. When if ever have you written a letter to a friend? Have you ever written a love letter? Have you ever gotten one? Like riding a horse, backpacking in the wilderness, or baking your own bread, or growing your own food the act of doing it the old way has value and is something that we may loose. My hand writing sucks but I have some beautiful hand written letters from a few friends of mine that I do treasure to this day.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.