I wonder how many of you regularly use Google Talk anymore? Its been ages since the Official Google Talk client was updated. We’ve patiently waited for new features like Group Chat, New Emoticons to make it into Google Talk, but so far that hasn’t happened. Well the Google Talk team has just released a ‘Labs Edition’ of Google Talk which is more or less same as the Google Talk Gadget, just that it is the desktop version of Google Talk Gadget.
The Labs edition of Google Talk features notification for new messages from Google Calendar and Orkut, in additional to Gmail, new emoticons and group chat.
Though the Labs edition has added new features, at the same time it has also removed useful features like File Transfers, Voice Chat. Here’s what the FAQ reads like :
Google Talk, Labs Edition is an experimental release that brings some of the great features of the Google Talk Gadget to the desktop. Some features like voice calling and file transfer from the Google Talk client did not make it into this version.
I am going to wait and see if Google releases a newer version of Google Talk, with group chat, voice chat and all the newer features we’ve seen in Google Talk Gadget. At the moment I am going to stick with Digsby my favorite IM Client, as it manages my email, facebook, twitter etc… pretty well.
Download Google Talk Labs Edition (Windows Only at the moment)
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Something tells me from the UI that this is more a hosted edition of the gtalk gadget rather an update to the Google talk desktop client. so my guess is they are just having an embedded browser which just goes to the talkgardget.google.com site and they do som background manipulaton. I see file transfer more important than group chat, so even i wont migrate.
Moreover it looks like Google wants to kill the Desktop client, as all the recent updates have been only to the gadget and for someone like me who prefers desktop to the web editions, this is a put off.
Regards
Dinesh
What a great job! I am so glad I read your article when I did! thanks and keep up the good work.
What a great job! I am so glad I read your article when I did! thanks and keep up the good work.
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