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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.
Doesn't anyone concern that Google now can archive your email, your IMs, your web search (thus your personal interests), and your phone calls?
whatever happened to privacy
Check out Kottke's article GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS?. In which he speculates about the future of the WebOS.
...so I guess I'll join in. This could be really cool. Skype and Google could be a marriage made in heaven. Skype is a good product, but to be great I think a few google phds could really iron out some of its potential flaws. Also, the google brand could make the product less scary to companies who see 'from the company that bought you kazaa' as a bad thing (quite rightly). It would also increase the number of people on the system. Even though its been out for months, I know very few people that use it.
The biggest problem I see with Skype at the moment is hardware. I set my girlfriend up with it and it caused no end of problems. Its one thing learning to use the interface (which is good) its another thing to learn about feedback, line in/out and buying a headphone set specifically for the purpose of VoIP (even if it is only $15). Still it was easier than trying to get AIM to work with iChat for a video chat.
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If you send email to someone on gmail, or you IM someone who's using Google-Talk, sure, Google could have a copy of that.
But lets be realistic. Google probably doesn't want any information about *you*, they probably want to *aggregate information*, which is what they've been doing all along.
This is all an extension of search. Through all the "omg", "lol", and "haha"s in Instant Messenger, there's thousands of words that can be associated with both each other and with other links. There's thousands of white-listed and black-listed participants, because people naturally filter their conversations. They don't want a database about *you*, they want a relational database about *communication*, to make it easier to find out what someone means when they type something like "river bank" or "white house".
It's all about relationships between language. Conversation is a natural extension. They provide a service, they get tons of data.
At least, this is what I would be doing with the data. Google might not be doing that.
Open-source (it uses Jabber!) IM that is backed by Google? Yes please!
I don't know about you, but I want to have "one IM to rule them all" that is also open source. Jabber was the prime candidate, but it was rather minor when compared to MSN, AIM and the like. Not anymore. Google is about to increase the number of people using Jabber by order of magnitude!
With Google's help, we just might get an IM-infrastructure that is based on open source and open standards. No need to mess around with MSN and the like, just use Jabber. No need to work around proprietary protocols.
If Google manages to put VOIP in there as well, more power to them! Once system for all your IM'ing and VOIPping. Based on open standards. Based on open source. With millions of users. Yes please! No longer would we have to rely on Skype for clients and service. No longer would we have to worry when MS or AOL breaks our IM-clients with "updated" versions of their protocol.
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I said the same darn thing yesterday on my blog http://thatedeguy.blogspot.com/ this article is a little more technical about it but what the heck...
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This whole piece is full of half-baked speculation. Google is perfectly happy with their current client which has been in development for months.
Its not as if Google is in the business of investing time, money and press exposure on "interim, stepping stones".
Google wanted Jabber. And that's what they used. The current client supports VOIP, and uses open standards. Anyone who knows Google knows that Jabber and Google's own VOIP are the platform for the next 5 years at least.
The only question should be: Will Google buy Webb Interactive (46% owner of Jabber)
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From what I have read, the Skype system works by using non-NAT'd people as relays for conversations where both end-points are NAT'd. This, unfortunately, is placing a lot of strain on their system as NAT'd people start to greatly outnumber non-NAT'd people. Of course, if we all had IPv6, this wouldn't be a problem.
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Google is turning into pure corporate evil. They are attempting to emulate Microsoft's behavior only with some tweaks by extending into everyones market and crushing them and making one NEED Google. Here in Europe where I am visiting there is a very strong feeling that Google is a American cultural danger to Europe and that MS and Google want to dominate the desktop and the internet. It looks in some ways that the fears are founded.
I don't think Google has any intention of aquiring Skype. Skype isn't SIP compliant, and while Skype might be more well known right now, SIP is a standard, and Google's own developer page highlights a desire to integrate with one of Skype's competitors, the Gizmo Project: http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html