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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.'"
Wasn't this called "Hello"? See here:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/
A lot of people already have IM networks that they're locked into because their friends/contacts are happy with that network and use it. In europe, its extremely common for people to have MSN, whilst the trend stateside seems to be more toward AIM (with MSN still significant there too). Google could do better by adopting something like XMPP/Jabber and either using a client that supports MSN/AIM/ICQ protocols or the server-side protocol translation that Jabber supports. A solid Google IM client based on XMPP might be just what the standard needs to build profile (whilst still allowing easy adoption through MSN/AIM compatibility)
Business Voyeur
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.
Sure they don't advertise it, but Hello is a Google product...
...sooner or later, Googlezon is coming.
.. 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.
Because people search google, an IM would be genius. People who search for the same thing could meet each other through google IM. Almost like how technorati and other sites do it, google could take it one step further. Imagine the waste IM client combined with the google search engine.
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.
- Connectivity with other nets (MSN/AIM/Yahoo!)
- Connectivity with other jabber users
- Allows a p2p structure, which is cheap for google
The fact that the technology is there, might be impotrant for google, since it is a solution that just has to be deployed. Only problem might be how servers cope when they get 100K users, and how google will ensure connectivity with MSN et al without being sued for something...Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
It doesn't have to be their own IM network. I could see Google coming out with a web-based IM client for an existing protocol, in line with their web-based desktop philosophy. I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing a nice lightweight AJAX-stylee IM client built into my google account for when im not at home.
Where is the story about rumours that Google would buy Meetro... This looks like a way to get people to visit the meetro website.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Yes.
Gmail has context sensative ads. Most messages have advertisements for related topics. For example, I became aware of dice.com through a gmail ad. They made a dime on that one, I'm sure.
Google News is a repository of information. Of course they make money on it. If nothing else, they learn their user's habits.
Picasa, in case you didn't know, has several venues for Google to make a profit. First, google gets a better understanding of how images are cataloged by their users. This makes services like images.google.com more efficient, and possibly even "smart". Second, Picasa is paired with a "Order Prints" function which shells out to several different photo printing services including Wal-Mart, Shutterfly, and Life Pics. This, I'm sure makes a small profit. Third, it integrates with Blogger and Tivo, which I'm sure there is an indirect revenue stream from these services as well.
An IM client could be huge for Google; I'm sure they could find ways to make a profit. Context sensative ads (similar to Trillian's Wikipedia lookup feature), regular advertisements (like AIM and MSN's advertising), and the ability to shell right out to their other revenue sources like google.com, gmail, and picasa.
Information is valuable these days...
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
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.
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