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Google Instant Messenger all Rumor
Jbravo writes "Search, blogging, maps, photos, email, and now a portal, Google has kept adding to their array of services. Is an instant messenger next for Google? Most recently Google has been said to be buying out a company called Meetroduction, LLC for their instant messenger Meetro. So, is it true? Is Google writing the check now? Well, after a chat with Paul Bragiel, CEO of Meetroduction, the word is not right now. He called the whole story 'rumors.'"
Denials are almost a sure sign that something is up. Rumors, I don't know. But every time a company denies something, it seems it's actually confirmed shortly thereafter.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Any company trying to roll out yet another instant messenger would be making a mistake. There are already three uber-popular, incompatible networks, not to mention the handful of smaller protocols. None of them really offer anything that the others don't have. Enough is enough.
UNIX: A computer user is defined as a programmer. WINDOWS: A computer user is defined as a consumer.
we really don't need another IM program. I'll consider trying it, but I think the general IM'ing population won't want to change.
I'll change in a second -- and tell all of my friends to change -- if, somehow, it just blows everything else out of the water. This, however, seems unlikely.
The cat's in the bag and the bag's in the river.
considered rumor only from now until it actually gets announced....
.. It is, to use the old phrase "a non-denial denial".
If the guy had said "It's just rumours and there is absolutely no truth in it" that would be one thing. Just saying "it's a rumour" is the polite equivalent of "no comment".
I would imagine that Paul Bragiel and his company is quite enjoying the attention, so it's not in his interests to decisively quash these rumours, so he's left things a little ambiguous.
Interesting that MS has to take a lot of flack here for using its "unfair" financial advantage to buy out companies for their tech (drawing comparisons to a vampire) whereas it has been perfectly okay for Google to do the same.
From TFA:
Google already has an instant messenger. "Hello" is a product that they received along with Picasa.
Sent from my computer.
Now GET OFF MY LAWN!
people are saying: "next IM? -no space on the net", but the same was with email - there were also thousends of mail providers before google and anyway google succeded!
Google could take IM any day, if they bought skype they wouldnt even need to do much re-branding!
Im still waiting for google calendar, theres just no good calander/task program thats remote, syncable, and cross-platform, unless im missing something..
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That'll teach you to entrust your e-mail to a beta service.
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Actually, many people are slowly finding they need 10 times the functionality that the Windows variants provide. That's why other OS's exist and will continue to exist. Realize that functionality can be measured in many ways - freedom isn't free, for one thing - it requires work, whether in a democracy or an effort to have free (from control by others) software.
Google is lead by people smart enough to recognize that Microsoft views them as a threat, and so, by fiat, Microsoft is a threat to Google. A world in which Google did not have to worry about loss of search effort (and hence loss of eyeballs to the advertising revenue they capture) to Microsoft or to others is a world in which Google makes more money. A weaker Microsoft that would have to make decisions on concentrating its resources on its bread-and-butter Office (threatened by OpenOffice, for one), and on its OS, which is its starting point for its huge market capitalization, is a world in which Microsoft is not gaining revenue from search, or from IM, etc.
IMO, Google could do far worse than to figure out how to make Firefox even more useful and how to make Gaim even more useful, and how to make Sunbird a useful product, and how to make a free Exchange-like product that tied 'em all together, and acted as a chat server, and so on, and to give those things away, and encourage their use. Less Microsoft presence in those areas means a retrenched Microsoft not dipping into the search engine advertising revenue stream.
Most important for any service that Google provides that makes it out of beta is revenue generation. If it doesn't make money, there is no need to pour cash and brainpower in to develop it. So, how would Google make money? I see three posibilities. First would be to use the standard model of banner ads that infest the tops of AIM. Second would be to sell the product, like DeadAim http://www.jdennis.net/ or Trillian Pro http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/. Both of these solutions are not typical of Google products. The last option would be for contextual ads, like in GMail. This is an option that would be very server intensive (real time ad generation) and creepy, as Google would be reading all the messages that go in and out. So, in summation, instant messaging does not seem to be a market that appeals to the core of Google's buisness plan. Changes may arise, but all in all, this seems like a venture that Google would stay out of.
No. geeks may be "slowly finding" this, but the "average user" is not. The "average user" has and continues to have a very well defined profile of things that they do. Games, image management, email, IM. The "average user" has no clue about much of what is discussed at Slashdot, and even less interest.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
As opposed to the proliferation of ICQ, AIM, MSN, and YM? After all, we all had IRC before those, right? How about different telephone numbers? People have a lot of different contact points in various areas that they only share with certain people. Take for instance your Slashdot account. Do you tell your grandmother what your Slashdot account is, so that she can reply to your comments? No, right? Ah, but here you and I are conversing.
That's a bunch of rubbish. Think of the millions of hits Google get's a day. Now, just pop a little thing on there saying "New! Google IM!" and boom: the majority of Slashdot and the internet tech crowd downloads it. It goes into the paper the next day generating more downloads. I don't think they would even need to do a gaim type thing and crossover to AIM and whatnot.
Think of the possibilities though. The ability to google any text someone sends you. Online and offline chat (ala ICQ) via Gmail (maybe set it up so that if you're offline and someone tries to send you a message its forwarded to your Gmail account or something). They could do all sorts of fun stuff.
We can remember it for you wholesale.
That's what GMail does today, so where's the weak link? IM, where people do communicate a lot of information which gets lost to those who don't keep logs. There's already a very usable Webmessenger for MSN. Having this server-based means the log are available from anywhere. Heck, just getting rid of having a separate e-mail and IM program filling up my RAM my well be worth it.
It would really be nice if they stopped attacking in all directions and actually fixed something. Ok, they've got some really great technologies, such as Search and advertising. Orkut was a good idea, just not well implemented and a bit dated now. Scholar.google.com also a good idea but with out decent content, it might as well not exist.
Google needs focus. I'd really rather they stayed best at everything they choose to do, rather than attack in all directions.
I don't get this. Most systems, not to mention most users already have a rendering engine running. Using it to access an online IM system can't be a performance issue.
I just think it makes a lot more sense to keep applications that require online presence... online!