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Google, Skype and the Future of IM
Matt Veenstra sent in a nice little piece of rumor mongering about how Google's new Talk/Jabber/IM thing is just a stepping stone, but it's really just a foreshadowing of
their future buyout of Skype. Worth some thought anyway.
Did anyone who moderated this actually look at the site?
It has less than 10 posts, and was 'created' by the twit who posted the URL.
The few posts on the site tend to be inaccurate.
As I understand it, Skype can route your call to standard landlines/mobiles as well. Google Talk (at the moment) cannot.
-Jar.
Together, We Can Make Slashdot Better. I Do NOT Mod ACs. - Check Me Out
Google respects and protects the privacy of individuals that use our services. Google Talk gives you control over whom you talk with, whom you block, and who can see your online status. Additionally, Google only requires minimal personal information--just your name and Gmail address--for you to use Google Talk.
Google Talk currently does not encrypt chats or calls. But we are working hard to make many improvements to Google Talk while it is in beta, and we plan to fully support encryption of chats and calls before our official release.
When you use Google Talk, you can choose to have your IM chats stored locally on your own computer so that you have a chat history. Google does not collect the content of instant message chats or voice conversations. As with all major IM services, Google Talk will collect certain log information created in the course of a conversation. This information is for Google's internal use only, to maintain statistics on usage and to improve our service and the user experience. We do not permanently store any personally-identifying information in the Google Talk logs. And we do not log any of the content of your chats or calls."
Good enough for you?
Also notable is that this is the first time I can think of that they've actually alluded to the Official Release of one of their perpetual betas.
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
If you read the google talk about and developer pages,
they clearly say that Google is committed to open standards. Skype is certainly not an open standard!
http://www.google.com/talk/about.html
http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html
Michael Robertson
Quote "But there's something much more noteworthy about the announcement. Google is agreeing to connect to other networks - something the big three instant messaging companies have refused to do. My company, SIPphone, has agreed to join into a federation with Google to use open standards and allow our customers to trade instant messages and voice calls. "
That's from the latest newsletter, which will eventually be at http://www.michaelrobertson.com/index.php when his webmaster gets off his ass and posts the latest one.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Slate has a much more plausible explanation for Google's secondary offering.
Google Talk's Developers' Page both explicitly says that GTalk will move over to SIP for VoIP services, and makes a big deal out of "Client Choice" and "Service" choice, which apparently they plan to accomplish through inter-connecting to SIP providers.
Skype itself released an SDK for third parties to hook up to its own network. That doesn't sound like a good move from a company that's in talks to be acquired by an IM operator.
It's probably more likely that Skype will be acquired by a phone company (probably a mobile one that's not afraid to undercut PSTN, Vodafone would be a good choice), and that Google plans to use SIP to reach Skype-scale quickly, without paying Skype prices...
They should use NAT punch-through.
Xenu loves you!
Janus Friis of Skype just said the opposite:
"We have potential, as the only IM (instant messaging) company focused on communications and as a result of our fast growth. We're very happy with our prospects as a standalone company. We've always meant this company to be for the long run. We're investing heavily in our infrastructure,"
Link to story
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
Yeah, Jabber has server2server capabilities, but for some reason, Google has switched this off. In other words, I cannot add anyone with a jabber.org (for example) account to my Google Talk jabber account. You can only chat to other Google Talk users. I'm a little dissapointed by this step. Perhaps they will open it up in the future.
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
True, however, RTFS and you will see they plan to partner with the Gizmo Project, which has in- and out-bound calls at rates comperable to SkypeIn and SkypeOut. Plus, the whole thing is open.
There's an old saying that says pretty much whatever you want it to.