May 5, 2009

Google Goes for Social with Google Talk Location and Friends Expansion in Reader

Google is really going after social media with two updates. First up, if you use Google Latitude, you can now automatically update your location on Google Talk. This is very reminiscent of social networking apps we're seeing for mobile phones. Allow yourself to be found and chatted with - very trendy.

Next up, Google Reader is getting even friendlier by enabling profile boxes for commenters. In other words, say you're checking out the comments on a friend's shared item and you don't know who someone who made a comment is. Mouse over the name and a box will pop up with their profile to give you a little info on them.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 4, 2008

Gates Talks Smack - Google Talk Crack

Gates at the Barbarians: "In terms of Google, not to overstate it, but they really don't understand the special needs of business. Today, their economic model is based on consumer search. They have done an incredible job there and obviously we're investing in challenging them in that space ..."

Overheard at the Googleplex ... or not:

Sergey: Say whut? Larry: None. Bill talk crack just like alwayz. Sergey: Talk ****, Get Hit.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates talked smack about Google at a press Q&A following the launch of Sharepoint yesterday:

"If you've seen ... the Google tools that have tried to do productivity type things, they really don't have the richness the responsiveness. You can see that relative [to] the success they have had there. Most of these Google products, to be frank, the day they announce them is their best day and then after that ...."

It was not a good day for Marissa Mayer on the Microsoftwatch, as Gates called out Google Talk as, well, a miserable failure:

"I remember there was one called G Talk. I can barely remember the name but it was so, you know, it was going to change the world, and so you know, it's healthy that there are many choices that people have here."

Separately, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer played Bob Barker, saying the price is right -- and the timing -- for Microsoft to buy Yahoo.

"The deal makes sense with the price and structure we announced. We hope it becomes reality," he said at a press conference at CeBIT in Hanover. "There is a lot of merit for Microsoft and Yahoo, for Yahoo shareholders and for Microsoft shareholders, for advertisers and for consumers."

So Jerry, "Come on down!"

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:59 AM | Permalink

October 10, 2006

Justin Uberti, AOL's Top AIM Developer, Hired By Google

Steve Bryant reports that Justin Uberti, who has been with AOL for about 10 years and working on AIM for almost 9 years, has been hired by Google to work in the Kirkland, WA office. Justin posted this news on his old blog and announces the launch of his new blog at juberti.blogspot.com, where he has links to the Google Blog, Google Talk Blog and Google Video blog - which may be signs as to what he will be working on at Google.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:57 AM | Permalink

August 28, 2006

EBay-Google PPCall Deal: More Than Meets The Eye

Barry posted earlier about the reported Google-eBay AdSense and "Click to Call" deal. The press stories were somewhat vague and incorrectly implied all elements of the deal to be international only. I subsequently got some clarity from Skype on the implementation. The big deal here is that this is PPCall coming to both Skype/eBay and Google in a potentially big way.

The "Click to Call"/PPCall piece of the deal is U.S. only, to be implemented in mid '07. It will then go international after that. Google and Skype are opening up both of their voice clients to PPCall -- it's really about accelerating adoption of PPCall. Whether there will be cross-distribution of advertisers remains to be determined, but I would assume yes eventually.

Here's a longer post on specifics of the PPCall piece of the deal on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:40 PM | Permalink

August 22, 2006

Google's Audio Player

Philipp notes as does Ionut Alex that with the release of voicemail on Google Talk, you can now use that feature to play audio files over Google's network. Philipp describes a method of easily doing this. One thing to note, as a Mac user. This does not rendered on Apple's Safari web browser, even thought Google Video works fine.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:03 AM | Permalink

August 17, 2006

Google Talk Gains Voicemail, Music Status, Photo & File Sharing Features

Google has announced that its Google Talk instant messaging platform now allows you to share files with other Google Talk users by dropping files or entire folders into the client. Photo files get special treatment, showing up in your client so you can talk about them with someone else, as covered more here. Listening to music? Another new feature, music status, allows other Google Talkers to see what hip (or embarrassing) song you're listening to, if you use one of these supported players. Along with music status comes a new Google Music Trends feature we mentioned earlier, which allows you to see what music is most popular across the entire Google Talk network of users. Finally, want to talk by voice using Google Talk but your contact isn't around? Now you can leave them up to 10 minutes of voicemail, through that new feature. Note that some Google Talk users already got these new features a few weeks ago. Now they are rolling out to everyone.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:05 AM | Permalink

August 16, 2006

Google Music Trends: See What Google Talkers Are Listening To

Garett Rogers spotted the release of Google Music Trends. The Google Labs has it listed and described as "See what music is popular among Google Talk users." It is basically Google Trends for music, though based on the activity of Google Talkers rather than Google searchers. You can currently filter by music genre, and there is a country filter, but I only see the United States as an option. I am a classic rock fan, so it is cool to see the trends for that genre. As Garett notes, the participate link at the top right, currently does not go anywhere.

Postscript: More on the new music status feature that powers Google Music Trends is covered here: Google Talk Gains Voicemail, Music Status, Photo & File Sharing Features.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:09 PM | Permalink

August 9, 2006

Google Talk & Sony Partner With Mylo Device

The Google Talkabout blog announced that the new Sony Mylo device will support Google Talk features such as Google Talk IM support, see who's online and available, manage your contacts, hold multiple chat conversations at once, plus some Gmail features. This is not big news, but when you see your kids running around with Mylos this September, they may think you are cool if you ask them to add you as a Google Talk buddy.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:43 AM | Permalink

August 4, 2006

Google Talk WiFi Phone Coming Soon?

Engadget reports that Taiwan's Alpha Networks is creating a WiFi phone that works over the Google Talk network. Alpha Networks told Engadget that they are just waiting for the "clients' product roadmaps." Not sure what that means, but it seems like a WiFi Google Talk phone will be here in the near future.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:37 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2006

Google's Non Search Products A Flop

BusinessWeek reports that when Google launches a new non-search product, the competition "shivers," Google has yet to lead in market share for any of those non-search products. Google's Gtalk is currently ranked number ten with two percent market share, Google Finance is the "40th-most-visited finance site," and Gmail "is the system of choice for only about one-quarter the number of people who use MSN and Yahoo e-mail." So with all these product launches, is Google a threat? Read more at BusinessWeek.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:18 AM | Permalink

June 12, 2006

Rumor: Google Caller ID Via Google Talk Coming Soon?

Garett Rogers discovered that Google added the directory /call to the Google robots.txt file. So when he checked out http://www.google.com/call he noticed that it is an XML file that contains and error and also a "caller id" field. What can we guess that this means? Do you think they may be adding VOIP services to Google Talk? Can this be related to AdWords Click to Call features? Or do you think Google is opening a Vonage like service named GoogleCall? Again, this is just a rumor, no one really has any idea what the /call directory is, as of yet.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:54 PM | Permalink

March 31, 2006

Google Talk Adds Buddy Avatars

Angelo Embuldeniya found a new version of Google Talk that allows you to add buddy avatars to your profile. You can either set up a pre-defined avatar, as Philipp Lenssen shows here or you can upload your own avatar. The new Google Talk is currently available for download here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:06 PM | Permalink

March 13, 2006

Google Releases Google Talk for Blackberry

Nathan Weinberg reports that Google Talk is now officially supported on Blackberry devices. The 18 page PDF user guide goes through all the features of Google Talk for Blackberry. Nathan reports that "it works in real time, and you can stay signed in and receive messages while using other Blackberry apps." More information at Blackberry's Web site.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:47 AM | Permalink

February 20, 2006

Voicemail Coming to Google Talk & Gmail?

Garett Rogers at Googling Google reported on Saturday that he found signs in the new source code of Google Talk of voicemail features. The voicemail features are hinted to in a line of code for filtering Google Mail and Talk results.

Rogers also found a line suggesting evite.com integration, however someone commenting on his blog downplays this as new, explaining it seems designed to prevent Gmail invite links from appearing on email sent from the evite.com domain.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:02 AM | Permalink

February 7, 2006

Google: Chat a Natural Fit with Email

In its ever expanding push into communications, Google has added chat to Gmail, tightly integrating the new feature with the archiving and search capabilities found in the mail program. More about the new feature in today's SearchDay article, Google Integrates Chat with Gmail.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

January 17, 2006

Open Federation Comes to Google Talk

Open Federation has come to Google Talk. What's that? According to a post on the Google Blog, Google Talk is now full interoperable (capable of communicating with any other service) using the XMPP protocol (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol).

From the Blog post: With open federation, you get to choose your service provider and you can talk to people on any other federated service (and vice versa). In addition to the Google Talk service, many other companies, universities, and corporations support open federation today. This means you can now talk to millions of users around the world all with a single account on the service provider of your choice.

Services using this protocol include Earthlink, Gizmo Project, Tiscali, Netease, Chikka, MediaRing, and thousands of other ISPs, universities, corporations and individual users.

Of course, the recent Google/AOL deal said that eventually (no dates at this time) Google Talk and AOL's AIM will offer interoperability. We also know that MSN and Yahoo have announced plans to make their IM services interoperable.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:08 PM | Permalink

December 16, 2005

Sorry Bill and Steve, WSJ Reports Google Near $1 Billion Deal With AOL

If Gates and Ballmer wanted a deal with AOL (Time Warner) as a Christmas gift, it appears that they're not going to get it. The MSFT vs. GOOG game of the "Price is Right" appears to be ending according to this just posted story from the Wall Street Journal: AOL Nears Deal With Google (sub req).

Here are a few key facts and passages from the article by Julia Angwin, Kevin J. Delaney and Dennis K. Berman:

+ AOL and Google are now in "exclusive negotiations." Microsoft has been "shut out" of the negotiations at this point.

+ Google will pay $1 billion for a 5% stake in AOL.

+ "AOL would be able to sell advertising among the search results provided by Google on AOL Web properties." At the moment, sponsored links come from Google...AOL's sales staff would also sell display ads across Google's network of Web publishers."

+ "Google will promote AOL's Web properties among the sponsored links in its search results, and will include AOL's collection of online videos among its search results. Google's arrangement to provide search technology for AOL, which was set to expire at the end of next year, would be extended for five years."

+ Don't look for a deal and/or an announcement until next week after a Time-Warner board meeting.

With multimedia search being one of the hot topics of 2005, I find it interesting that AOL Video, which we've been talking about a lot this year both in terms of content and UI, will be visible in Google results in one form or another. It's obvious that video and video search have been a high priority to the company over the past year and they've done some impressive work. AOL has easy access to lots of video content from Time-Warner, deals with other providers, and also its own multimedia crawler with SingingFish. It will be interesting to see (no pun) if any exclusive video that Google has would/will begin appearing on AOL? Also would future deals that both companies make for video content be made so the material would be accessible on both services? Will the AOL Video database of crawled video content continue to use SingingFish technology or will Google begin to using the SingingFish crawler?

Btw, don't forget that AOL is currently testing (it works great for me) the delivery of high-quality videos while your computer is quiet.

I'm also wondering about future issues with Google and AOL in the instant messaging space. AOL is the leader. Will Google Talk become interoperable with AIM, so the two systems and their users can chat or talk to each other? Earlier this year, MSN and Yahoo announced a deal that will allow users of either service to chat with each other. Would the AIM and Google Talk tech be merged? I could go on with VoIP, broadband, wi-fi, cable tv, and all sorts of other stuff but let's not get way ahead of ourselves.

From the SEW Archives: + Overture & Inktomi Out, Google In At AOL (May 1, 2002) + AOL Moves Fully To Google (August 5, 2002) + AOL Renews With Google (October 8, 2003)

Want to discuss? Check this thread in the SEW Forums.

Postscript: Reuters has now published a story on the still yet to be announced deal. The Google-AOL talks would expand on a relationship which analysts estimate account for 2 percent to 4 percent of Google's revenue on a net basis. AOL uses Google's search engine

Postscript 2: Perhaps the most interesting part of all of this is found (via Searchblog ) in this coverage from the NY Times that says that Google will give AOL preferred placement on the Google site.

Here's the passage: Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before.

Does this mean "favored placement" of ads or of organic results? I think before starting to speculate we need to know more on just what Google is thinking here. If Google would start giving "favored placement" for organic results then it would sure be a "wow" moment/change of direction in Google's history. From an advertising standpoint it would be interesting to see how the SEM community would respond. Battelle uses the expression "jump the shark" to describe the NYT passage in his post but adds that it also just might be a "trial balloon."

Of course, it's very unlikely we hear anything official about any of this until next week.

Postscript 3 (Saturday): David Vise's article from the Washington Post on the possible deal. From the article: + AOL also will get the exclusive right to sell online banner ads for Google. AOL will keep about 20 percent of the proceeds from those ad sales, while Google will get about 80 percent.

+ "AOL is a valued partner," Google spokeswoman Lynn Fox said yesterday. "We look forward to continuing to work with them."

+ AOL has provided Google with more than $400 million in ad revenue so far this year, according to public filings.

+ The existing arrangement -- under which Google provides text-based ads and free search results on AOL -- will continue, with AOL keeping 80 percent of those ad proceeds and Google taking 20 percent.

+ One source said AOL will also have the right to buy graphic ads that appear alongside the text-based ads Google traditionally has displayed to the right of its free search results.

+ Google's search results, based on equations that rank them according to relevancy, will not be changed as a result of the new partnership with AOL, sources said.

Postscript 4: See AOL's Choice of Google Leaves Microsoft as the Outsider has more details on AOL having concerns over MSN's new ad network and arguing that its own ad serving software was beter.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:44 PM | Permalink

December 1, 2005

Official Google Talk Blog Launches & All-In-One Official Google Blog Posts Page

Yet another official blog from Google, this one for Google Talk. When we gained the Google Base blog, I wished for Google to give us an all-in-one feed. Philip over at Google Blogoscoped was feeling the same frustration, and he solved that by creating a web page that unites them all. The only problem is, you can't get a feed of everything that goes onto that page. Hopefully, Google itself will come up with that unified feed.

Postscript: Philip's created a feed now, which you'll find here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:54 AM | Permalink

October 17, 2005

Google Recruits Lead Programmer of Open-Source IM Project

According to the CRN Australia article: Google snaps up Gaim programmer, Google has recruited another well-known programmer in the instant messaging space. According to CRN Australia, Sean Egan, the lead developer of the open-source Gaim instant messaging project, has left open-source, multi-protocol IM project the to work at Google in Seattle.

From the article and Gaim Site: "The goal of Google Talk is to make real-time communication as open as possible, and in that regard, I've been working to offer all of Google Talk's features into other clients," wrote Egan. "Currently, I'm working on making it as easy as possible for other clients to use Google Talk's voice features."

Gaim was a participant in Google's Summer of Code initiative.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:16 PM | Permalink

September 22, 2005

Google: The Telecom Provider, Leases Massive Amount of Space in NYC

The NY Post article (reg. required, free): Google Feeling Lucky, offers a massive amount of fuel to the Google, your telecom company story. According to The Post, Google is leasing 270,000 sq. feet in a Chelsea office building that's known as a telecom carrier "hotel" because the Eighth Avenue building is home to thousands of servers (from many carriers including BellSouth, MCI, Qwest, and Sprint) and the critical infrastructure to support them.

"111 Eighth Avenue is the premier telecom and data facility in the United States," said Neal McGraw, the chief financial officer of NYC Connect LLC, which operates a facility in the building that allows tenants to connect their networks efficiently and at a low cost.

Also worth noting: [The buildings] concentration of interconnected networks would allow Google to offer its new voice-over-Internet service, Google Talk, more efficiently and at lower cost because it would be able to connect directly to the networks of many of the world's leading telecom firms that are also housed there.

One telecom analyst tells The Post that he and his colleagues have never seen a network buildup on this scale.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:30 AM | Permalink

September 6, 2005

First Mobile Client for Google Talk Released

That didn't take long. A quick post to point out that MessageVine, a company offering mobile IM tools to communications industry and corporate, market, has just announced that they have just released a mobile client for Google Talk.

MessageVine's Mobile IM client for Google Talk is an always-on, secure real-time communication application based on rich presence information. MessageVine's Mobile client offers the same friendly and intuitive user experience as offered by the Google Talk's PC client.

Unfortunately, MessageVine licenses its technology to carriers and companies. So, at least for now, it's not available for an individual to download and license.

Mobile access to AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger is available in one form or another depending on the type of phone you have and your mobile carrier.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:47 AM | Permalink

August 30, 2005

Where Did Google Talk Come From?

Where did Google Talk come from? Not far from Microsoft, literally. According to brief item in the Seattle Times much of the work was done at Google's research facility in Kirkland, Washington that's about a 5.6 mile drive from Microsoft HQ. Google opened this site last November.

Were it not for us having the Kirkland office, we wouldn't necessarily have had this product," said Georges Harik, a director of product management who oversaw Google Talk. The way Harik tells it, a number of engineers in the Kirkland office were interested in developing an instant-messaging product earlier this year. They started working on it full time, and within a few months the product was ready to go.

Harik told SEW that Google Talk was tested internally for about a month before its launch last week.

Some Google Talk technology was not developed in-house but raher licensed from Global IP-Sounds based in Stockholm. More about that here.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:47 PM | Permalink

August 25, 2005

Google Licenses Some Technology to Power Google Talk

So, did Google license any technology to help power Google Talk?

A story from Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten (via their English desk), and this news release, point out that some of the technology Google is using to power the audio portion of Google Talk comes from Stockholm-based, Global IP Sounds.

The article goes on to say: According to Hermansen over 200 million users had downloaded the new Google program, and that this would help GIPS technology to become the industry standard for high-quality IP conversation.

That 200 million number seems a bit (-; high. However, the news release makes it clear that 200 million downloads of various types of Global IP Sounds are in the marketplace. If you're wondering just how many people downloaded/used Google Talk yesterday, I've asked Google for the number. Let's see what they have to say.

Postscript: Well, I tried. I asked for a download number but did I get one? Nope. Surprised? Not at all. A spokesperson told me that Google was unable to share the info.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:49 PM | Permalink

August 24, 2005

Google Launches "Google Talk" IM Client With Voice Calls

No longer rumor, the Google Talk instant messaging service from Google debuted today. Got a Gmail account? Then you can begin instant messaging via Google -- or do voice conversations, as well. Don't have Gmail? There's a new signup via text message system in place to help you along.

New Google Talk Offers Instant Messaging & Voice Chat from me and Gary is today's SearchDay article that delves into the new service, looking at how it takes Google further down the portal path but a path it pretty much needs to walk to stay competitive with rivals. We also look at how the new tool isn't in the "blow you away" style of some past Google offerings, unless you feel the voice quality of calls is as good as billed. We haven't done enough testing to put a stamp of approval on that.

There's also a handy comparison chart on how the tool stacks up against some of the competition in terms of features, along with more information. Check out the story!

Want to discuss or comment? Visit our forum thread, Google Talk Instant Messaging Live!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:01 AM | Permalink

August 23, 2005

Google Rumored To Launch Instant Messaging Tomorrow

Google to Deliver Instant Messages from the Los Angeles Times has unnamed sources telling the paper that Google will launched an instant messaging service called Google Talk as early as tomorrow. Aside from IM, the tool would also offer voice chat similar to what Yahoo Messenger currently offers.

Google's said to have been testing the service for at least a month. Google confirmed to the LA Times that it had a new product to release this week (when don't they?) but declined to say if it was Google Talk was the product.

The New York Times yesterday wrote that "Google executives" said they'd unveil a "communications tool" on Wednesday but not exactly what that would be.

Brad Hill points to a Neowin post about the talk.google.com domain has been spotted. Using a Trillian IM client, the domain was found to be waiting for IM connections using the Jabber protocol. Nathan at InsideGoogle has comments, as does Dirson and Threadwatch.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our forum thread, Google Talk Instant Messaging Coming?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:39 AM | Permalink

August 2, 2005

Stats: Time Spent With Various Yahoo and Google Services

Bambi Francisco's article: Why Google may need instant messaging offers a bunch of new and interesting stats from Majestic Research about Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Instant Messenger and Gmail.

• Yahoo Mail accounts for 42% of Yahoo users' online time
• Yahoo Messenger accounts for 22% of Yahoo users' time
• Gmail captured 45% of all time spent on Google in June
• Time spent on Google's e-mail service outpaced that of Google's main search function, which drew 90% of Google's unique visitors in June
• Yahoo Messenger attracted about 19% of Yahoo's unique visitors in June and accounted for 23% of total page views
• Time spent on Yahoo outpaced time spent on Google by more than 9 to 1, according to Majestic

Postcript: The Red Herring Article: No Time Lost on Search, has a bit more.

Google generates nearly all of its revenue from search advertising, but search accounted for only 21 percent of the time that U.S. visitors spent on its site during June, said Majestic Research. In contrast, 45 percent of the time was spent on Gmail, Google’s beta email service.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:21 PM | Permalink

January 24, 2005

Wild Speculation On Google Internet Phone Service Launch?

The Times Of London is reporting that Google will launch a free internet telephone service: Google gears up for a free-phone challenge to BT. For its part, Google has apparently dismissed the report as "pure speculation."

Source for  The Times? None given. It all seems based on the previously reported job ad that Google was seeking someone to negotiate for use of "dark fiber," fiber optic lines that are in place but not currently used.

The Times is going out on a very shaky branch with speculation of a phone service based on one single job advertisement. You'd think Google might be hiring a few other people to get such a service actually off the ground. We haven't heard of ads for those positions.

In addition, opening such a service would be a very tough sell to explain how offering internet phone service is related to Google's mission of organizing the world's information.

But -- perhaps they've got other sources that will prove them right. So why the job posting. No one really knows, but the idea that they simply want to negotiate for cheaper bandwidth for their own needs sounds best to me.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:09 AM | Permalink

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