The big news today was of course the Google Talk mini launch.

But, can Google make a difference in the IM space?

I think so, and here’s why:

  • Google intends to ‘Federate’ its service with other services. This is clearly part of their intent. How successful they are depends on whether or not they can convince the big players to … play. If they can get ICQ and AIM on board, for instance, it might not take much to get Yahoo on board. MSN though, being Microsoft, will probably never Federate with anything Google does … Still, with even one or two of the major IM providers federated, Google Talk will actually be useful.
  • Even if it is not able to get the Federation stuff worked out, people will probably run it because its a google thing. There are enough people out there who just install all the cool Google stuff without thinking that a reasonable userbase will appear overnight.
  • Google’s ethos of putting the user first means that their IM client is much cleaner than all the others out there. MSN? Complete bollocks. Hate it - too colorful, and I don’t want/need all the other buttons/services it provides. Yahoo? Same problem. ICQ? Yup. Its the main reason I run Adium on my mac, and don’t bother with IM too much on my PC.
  • Tie in with their other services. Imagine if someone says in a conversation the name of a place, and google maps is linked INTO the chat window and you see a little minimap that you can click on. Gmail could have a button to click that says “chat with this person now” much like what you can do with MSN and Outlook Express.

Like all of these things, Google will spend many years building this service up. Don’t expect it to be a success overnight, and certainly don’t write it off so early in the game as ‘irrelevant’.