Google's GTalk Supports XMPP

IceFox writes "On Google Gtalk blog Mike Jazayeri announced open federation for the Google Talk service. Nothing to do with Star Trek it means they now support open federation with any service provider that supports the industry standard XMPP protocol. Although they don't specifically mention AIM compatibility, at CES GTalk was shown with buddy icons so it can't be that far away."

Comments

More Google Talk Resources

[eldavojohn]

For those readers interested in customizing Google Talk, I would suggest looking at Customize Talk. It has a lot of great downloads.

If you want to be able to chat to your friends on AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Chat, Jabber, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise, Zephyr or Google Talk, then I suggest you download GAIM which works on virtually any platform. There are some configurations that need to be set to connect to Google Talk networks.

And, if you're really into this stuff, join the Google Talk Open Group on Google Groups and help people fix bugs or figure out how to kill bugs that you might have!

Re:More Google Talk Resources

[trolleymusic]

And if you've got a mac, Adium is a fantastic, cute and open-source client that does all that GAIM stuff too :)

Nice, but still some flaws

[GORby_]

Apparently, there are some problems with certain servers (malformed XML), and there's no support for chat rooms yet. This is not really google's fault if that's true, since it's the other server that are sending out the malformed XML, and google seems to use strict checking...

I guess the lacking features will be added later, but it would have been nice to have that already.

Linux?

[kote-men-do]

We should really slap google (by means of some sort of "internetworked slapping device") for not supporting desktop linux... Gtalk, gvideo store, their desktop search appliance, ... No linux versions for any of these!

Very disappointing if you ask me.

Re:Linux?

[bedroll]

You were saying about gtalk?

Aside from that, you have to acknowledge Google for making in-browser apps that work exceptionally well in FireFox. This means that they aren't showing favoritism to one OS or another for in-browser apps. (though they seem to favor FireFox over IE, I can't blame them for that either though :) The problem with a lot of their stand-alone apps is that they are either purchased or created as one of their programmers personal projects.

Also, the gvideo service seems to allow you to use their Flash player for most videos. Macromedia has a Linux version of Flash, so I'm not sure it's accurate to say that it's unavailable. Google Earth is more of a toy than anything else, you can get most of the usable functionality via Google Local in-browser on any OS.

Reposting comment

[eSavior]

Here is a comment I put on the Newsgab story (Found it trying to find people talking about the google talk announcement)

I doubt the others will follow. Open networks compete on things like features reliability, but closed networks compete on things like the ability to talk to people you know. So, by MS keeping a closed im network if I want to talk to someone on it, I cant just add them to my list I have to start up a account and get a compatible client. (I am sure I am not telling you anything you didnt know, but it is important to realize open networks mean a better instant messenging experience because it changes the rules of competition) The opening of the servers will probably not make much news, but really its a huge event. A open im network (with many users) is something that has been long coming and hopefully googles move to embrace it will allow for many more users to see the light.

So as I said, this is a huge move, heres hoping the news media doesn't downplay it. I see some commenters complaining about lack of features, well this move should make you happy then! Just jump to a server with alot of transports/services (*cough* ursine.ca *cough*) and you can still talk to all your gtalk buddies. Thats the greatness of open networks, servers competing on features NOT users.

Re:Reposting comment

[linuxmop]

It's nice that Google has enabled s2s support, but I don't really see this as a big move. The lack of Google Talk support is (was) not holding back federated XMPP. The lack of users is. And frankly, there is simply no motivation for most users to switch to a Jabber-based system right now.

For Jabber to become the dominant IM service, it would require a critical mass of users. The best way for that to happen today would be AIM or MSN to support XMPP with s2s since it would not require the millions of existing users to change their behavior.

This is unlikely to occur. We have heard that Google is planning on somehow providing AIM support. However, based on the few articles out there that discuss this, it sounds like you will have to have an AIM account in addition to your XMPP account. This absolutely defeats the purpose of "combining" the networks, since you will still have two handles: your Jabber address, and your AIM screenname. I could already do that with Jabber transports and/or Gaim/Trillian multi-IM support.

Here's hoping that the news reports got it wrong and that AIM users will be able to communicate natively with XMPP users. If not, Google Talk will be a failed experiment.

Buddy Icons

[FooAtWFU]

Uhh, I don't know if you realize this, but plenty of other protocols besides AIM support buddy icons- Yahoo! Instant Messanger, MSN Instant Messanger, Jabber (which is XMPP itself)...

AIM may be coming or it may not but don't rely on the buddy icons to tell you.

I noticed this by chance yesterday

[Kraegar]

Was setting up chat via jabber to some co-workers, and found that I didn't need to set up a jabber.org account, I could talk to them directly with my google talk account. Worked pretty seamlessly (To both @jabber.org accounts and @bgmn.net accounts), including a chat room. I was using GAIM as a client.

Re:Lacks voice support on Mac and Linux

[protomala]

Kopete 0.12 from CVS/SVN and PSI already have support for voice, and it works.
This is the beauty of open-source, google instead of building a google talk client for linux give everbody a lib for voice and is using open standards (jabber).
Nice move of them.

Title should be: Google Talk supports XMPP s2s

[Intosi]

Google Talk was always XMPP client to server (c2s), but they started accepting open federation recently (yesterday, as far as I know) using the XMPP server to server protocol (s2s).

How is SPIM handled?

[PornMaster]

While there's no shortage of SPIM on the proprietary networks, if federation means an increase in connectivity between disparate (and arbitrary?) IM networks, is there any trust process to keep rogue servers off of the network? Is it a matter of blacklisting/delinking?

Connecting to GTalk without using Google's client

[halr9000]

If you want an open-source, multi-platform alternative, as noted on the GTalk website, you can try Psi. Psi also has alpha "Jingle" voice chat support that is compatible with Google Talk. Read here for special instructions on how to connect to Google's server "natively", as opposed to over S2S.

GT works OK, don't use official client!

[Baloo Ursidae]

I guess the lacking features will be added later, but it would have been nice to have that already.

You have them, you just weren't trying hard enough. This should work with any capable Jabber client (Google Talk is not capable, nor is GAIM), but I'm using Psi as a example for lack of better alternative. Psi is also available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

• Get Psi
• Follow the Google Talk Howto on their wiki
• Go to Psi > Service Discovery and enter, say, ursine.ca or one of the other IM Federation members nearest you. You should see at least a JUD, if not a few transports on any of those IMF member servers.

I just did the homework so you don't have to. Enjoy.