Rumors have been going around about it, but today Google officially released their new IM / VoIP app, Google Talk.
The big questions is, is there a place for this app? Google says that they are committed to using open standards for the app, it looks nice and is ad-free, and if there is any company that can break into the IM market at this point, it is Google. Downside is that they are going to have to convince people to switch to a new IM client this late in the game, and unless they release Linux and Mac OSX versions and all are the same quality product, they don't offer much reason for switching to a lot of people.
Supposedly, they are in talks with Yahoo and AOL to get inter-operability with those services into Google Talk (beyond the basic support that comes along with being a Jabber client.)
I'm really curious to see if this thing takes off or not. The problem with switching to a new IM app is that unless there is really good compatibility, unless all of your friends make the switch as well, it often isn't worth it. If Google can make something really nice that people want to use, maybe enough people will make a switch and there will be more of a "standard." I mean, I only use AIM because (a) most of my friends do, and (b) that is what iChat is built upon. However, it is a bit of a pain when I want to talk to any of my international friends, all of whome use something like MS Messenger. I know there are the non-official IM apps out there, but I've never been a fan of any of the ones that I've used.
I'm also curious to see if Apple will build in direct support for Google Talk into iChat.
