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Google, Skype and the Future of IM

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the nothing-like-a-little-theory dept.

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.

6 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. "News" implies some basis in fact... by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slashdot: Speculation for Half-wits.
    Honestly, is a story based at least marginally on fact too much to ask? A entire article without one scrap of evidence to back it up...in fact, in under thirty seconds I was able to find two articles that would seem to contradict this assertion.

    How exactly did this make it onto Slashdot?

    Google, Skype and the Future of IM

    Oh, I see...
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    1. Re:"News" implies some basis in fact... by PDXNerd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Slashdot: Rumors for nerds, something to impress your friends with!

      Seriously though, remember the original Google Talk rumors and how they were debunked? Now this? What about the Google Earth rumors? What about a Google Browser (which hasn't happened, but the newest Google Desktop is mighty close...)

      Also - the previous story had to do with viral marketing and Serenity - now this comes along. Perhaps Google is doing a bit of viral marketing of their own? I wonder how many "Google Rumors" have been posted here, debunked here, and then later, after release, had an article here saying "It's true!!!!"

    2. Re:"News" implies some basis in fact... by Dr.+Molf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wow. His evidence is startling: #1/ Buying Skype would cost a lot of money #2/ Google just raised a lot of money QED. Based on these facts, I think that Google is going to buy Chuck E Cheese (NYSE: CEC). I submit as evidence the fact that Google is not yet in the Children's Entertainment Pizza n' Token business and certainly being able to put online ads on the walls around a Chuck E Cheese would be very lucrative. Children are highly impressionable and Google has lots of money. QED. At the very least, any baseless opinion article should be sent in by at least a different person than the actual author. Of course you believe your own made-up bull. SIGH.

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  2. Google vs. Skype by hkmwbz · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Google and Skype could turn out to be competitors as well. Do we really want Google to buy up potential competitors?

    But I guess history shows that the Skype creators could sell their creation to set out for something else. That's what they did with Kazaa anyway.

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  3. Why would they buyout Skype? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They already have VoIP built into their client and a huge marketing machine, including millions of viral marketing droids, working in their favor.

  4. Re:Another Google buyout? by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well until Google gives me a reason not to trust them, I will. They actively compete on their merits, not on monopoly or force. If you search for an address they still give you links for Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and Mapquest. They have donated large sums of money to OSS and have paid for many developers to work on it over them summer. Now they are using their weight to standardize instant messaging the way e-mail is standardized. If you read Google Talk's site, you'll see that a big initiative is getting instant messaging into a state like e-mail is where you can IM anyone on any network from any IM client. Jabber has server2server capabilities and thus will greatly help this effort. If I ever sense that they are misusing my information, then I'll think about leaving them, but until then, they have my full support. They have literally made the internet a better place to be.
    Regards,
    Steve