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Google Adds Chat To Gmail

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wouldn't-be-a-weekday-without-a-google-story dept.

Nathan Weinberg writes "Google has added a chat feature to Gmail. It brings Google Talk, minus voice calls, into your webmail client. Gmail now also logs your IMs, whether they originate in Gmail or Google Talk. In the commentary at InsideGoogle, I note that Google recommends you disable Firefox's AdBlock, which can block Google's ads, if you want Gmail Chat to function properly."

13 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Chat sites and advertising by ModernGeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted. One thing I noted was the fact that in the past google would not let chat sites advertise because they could not parse the chat text and bring relevant ads to the page. I used to run an IRC Network that was big into web integration (think AJAX gateway to IRC), and I wanted to implement google ads, but they didn't seem content on any solution for us, no matter what we brought to the table. Maybe now that they have targeted advertising for their chat service, they will allow targeted advertising for other chat services. Either that, or they will want to keep a monopoly with their Gmail + Talk service.

    --
    Sig: I stole this sig.
  2. I noticed by dtfinch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This morning I came to my computer to find that Google Talk had popped up five identical dialogs asking if I wanted to send my logs to my gmail account.

  3. I foresee.... by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I foresee a web based api to embed GTalk into your site. This web based chat interface is exactly what I've been waiting for, in fact I personally think they should do away with their desktop counterpart and do voip through an open source plugin of sorts. Using a desktop app just doesn't feel googly, no matter how well ddesigned it may be. Now if only they'd throw in support for GPG signing and/or encrypting in GMail(yes I know it'd kill their compression ratios). If everything was done client side in javascript, I'd imagine the security concern would be fairly low, the only thing I can think of is maybe other programs crawling the browser's memory after you've decrypted your private key client side (does anyone know if this would be an issue?)
    Regards,
    Steve

    1. Re:I foresee.... by Kelbear · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You bring up a fascinating point. It's been discussed before, but since time has progressed, it seems we may be getting closer and closer to the implementation of such a thing. If only we had the resource/security/broad user base necessary:P

      It would be an amazing thing to see embedded chatrooms in webpages. It'd allow for "bumping into strangers" on the internet, vastly increasing social potential. Chatrooms already allow for those of similar interests to meet, and so do forums. However, by placing it directly on the same page, you lower the amount of initiative needed to go to these places to find those with common interests.

      Subject material could immediately be dissected amongst fellow readers. They may have access to information beyond the scope of the article itself, and can provide additional insight into the subject. Obviously, Slashdot provides a similar service through a threaded forum. It'd be fascinating to see a similar thing appear on other websites in a chat format(minus the inane beowulf references).

      Forums like slashdots do provide features that cannot be easily mimicked by a chat interface. Nevertheless, I wonder when(if ever) we'd be able to see something like this.

  4. How to Block Chat but not Mail by TrebLib · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder if it is possible to block google talk within google mail.

  5. Way more than "partial excitement." by brian.glanz · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I don't see this as incremental, while it is a step in a longer path. I expect users to be more than partially excited.

    Time was when we debated whether IM would subsume email; think we called them "instant messaging" and "e-mail" at that point 8)

    IM and HTTP/HTTPS, different protocols, different Subnets, architecture which in classic Geek fashion precipitated different end user apps for each.

    Welcome again to 2006, some say "the year of user experience" in what is clearly, at least a minor era thereof. Different protowhats? Try explaining to users why IM and email have been kept apart until now.

    These apps had to change, had to merge, for users have been forced to keep vague, human mental track of what was said when and where and to whom. Until and even with Google Desktop, we had little hope of "keeping straight" what we had typed to each other through our machines. From a user's point of view, this is absurd! What should be simpler?

    Google's founders were 15 and 16 years old (Brin, Page respectively) when "Field of Dreams" introduced the iconic phrase "If you build it, they will come." In software, this mantra has never been more true than when "they" are users -- not clients in the B2B case, users. Maybe that film hit the Googlers at just the right, impressionable age.

    Let their corporate motto, "Don't be evil" extend to "don't be greedy." The greedy engineer, nee the greedy corporation, puts its own, short term interests first, followed closely by its clients' interests, followed somewhere after by its users' interests. We all know that happy B2B users lead to happy clients lead to happy software businesses and happy engineers. Under market pressures though, few of us software businessmen, middle managers, and engineers have the nads to invest in the idea. What could be worse than knowing better and still acting greedy, if not evil?

    The cliche's are irresistable, I'm sorry; let's try: "give, and ye shall receive." Or, how about a metaphor: The User King. A testy, unpredictable ruler when misunderstood and/or abused, when well treated he is a benevolent king who will stay with and guide you. You need only build for him a castle, provide him servants and society, influence in court, importance and so on.

    If the engineers and businessmen submit to their User King despite short term expenses, they will find themselves well cared for in return. "Leveraging" this, to "utilize" in your "solutions" of course, is only as difficult as letting go of your ego. Let the "participation age," the Web 2.0ness wash over you. Speak softly to yourself "I am not the user, I am not in control, The User is my King." Let go of your pet features, your opinions about graphics and cuteness. Let go of everything visible in the application.

    Make no assumptions about what King User wants or needs. Take some time and ask him, not your boss or your executive leadership or your shareholders or your clients, accept no substitutes. Ask your User, then include not one more feature than your users need: remember Google.com, circa 1999? One or two interesting touches, like a looser-than-most corporate logo policy and some casual, entertaining wording like "I'm feeling lucky," that's fine. Be Geeky, but whatever you do: "don't be difficult." Don't be a Geek. Don't be the Geek you know you are; rather, be only what King User wants you to be, not one thing more.

    I like the "coming soon" type announcements when we can believe the company saying it. Coming soon to free, minimalist, searchable, 3 Gig accounts near you: "IM and email, what's the difference? and could RSS be any easier?"

    Couldn't have come from a more usual suspect.

  6. The whole point of email is to avoid "instant" IMO by bbzzdd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The whole reason I use email is that I don't want to talk (chat) with people realtime. I like to respond on my terms. Now my gmail contacts are going to want to up and chat with me all of the time?

    Hopefully this feature can be disabled. I love gmail for it's simplicity, but now they are encroaching on feature bloat.

  7. Re:Use AdBlock Plus by Surt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Interesting, I wonder why it's not consistent. I use adblock and gmail works fine for me.

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  8. I forsee no more gmail access from work... by ncttrnl · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Thanks to people generally not being able to control themselves with chat programs, I forsee a fairly swift blocking of gmail through most corporate firewalls to protect productivity.

  9. Logging where? by everphilski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Logging can be incredibly useful when you're using IM for online meetings and collaboration.

    Logging on *my* computer is fine and useful. Logging on *their* server is not.

  10. Re:whatever! by kevin_conaway · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Stop being a leech. You're using their services for free. The least you could do (besides absolutely nothing) is look at their ads

  11. Re:Logging by j-cloth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google chat will allow you to be logged on multiple times (I often forget to log off at home then log on at the office).
    It seems to route messages to the most recently activated client (this is a problem for the situation above when a cat walks across the keyboard at home and makes the unattended client active). I have noticed that some jabber clients (PSI?) will let you select which instance to send a message to when a user is logged on more than once. How this ties into gmail/gtalk? I'm not sure.

  12. Re:Off the record nonsense by mopslik · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Am I missing something obvious here? A simple copy/paste will bypass this seemingly pointless feature.

    Well, since the chat logs are stored on Google's servers, I imagine that it would be awfully hard to "paste" your OTR text into said chat log.

    Sure, somebody can make a local copy of the chat log with the OTR text pasted into it, but if you were to compare it to the version stored on Google's servers, you'd see that the local copy was a "fake" -- as in, "I never said that".

    Or so I see it...