"There were two instant messaging releases shipped yesterday from two of the major online players."
(Via Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life.)
Ahh.. yes there were two clients released. And I installed both. I installed MSN messenger 7.5 yesterday. Saw very little that affected me going from 7.0 to 7.5 (the login screen is different). Moved on.
Google IM on the other hand, was a service release for me, not an application that I have to install. All I had to do, was go to my chat clients on the mac (adium, iChat AVI), add an account with the jabber protocol and thats it.
Which experience was more exciting? Google IM is more exciting, because when I get to my windows box, I'll install the lean and mean google IM client, which should load fast. Unlike the MSN messenger with all its ugly disgusting tabs. Thats what I hate about the MSN client. Its bulky, takes too long to login, and the interface is cluttered with stuff I have never cared about. I dont even do voice chat, I just type some stuff and I'm done. Jabber also has the possibility of allowing interaction within various Instant Messaging systems (MSN/AIM/ICQ). Although I don't see it now, there is hope that I'll be able to interact with my msn and aim buddies just through google's jabber server. Thats whats so exciting.
Google's entrance into the instant messaging landscape is interesting although unsurprising. As usual Google has entered the space with a disruptive move but instead of the move being the feature set of its IM client it is by not treating their IM network as a walled garden as AOL, MSN and Yahoo! have done. People aren't restricted to the Google Talk client and anyone can write a client application to connect people within their network. I'm not sure this is a smart move but it definitely is a disruptive one.