Now you can talk in Google Talk all within your browser. Earlier in the week Google enabled a feature allowing you to save Gtalk conversation directly to your Gmail account. Now you can instant message from it as well. This sounds great right? Well it’s not and I’ll tell you why. First hearing of this news I was delighted. I ran to my inbox and tried to find out how to start using it. Nothing was there. No Quick Contacts menu in the sidebar, nothing. What was all of this about then? A painful reminder to mac users that we suck. I was, of course, using Apple’s Safari browser. Google Talk, the application itself, only runs on Windows so what would be the point of integrating GTalk into a system that already had the client? I thought that maybe Google had done this so that Linux and Mac users can enjoy the nifty, lightweight Jabber-powered instant messaging offered by Google Talk but I was obviously wrong. In a last resort, I opened up Firefox and was mildly delighted to see that everything was swell.
If you are a Gmail user, head over to your inbox and let me know what you think. Hovering over emails creates a window allowing you to initiate a Gtalk session with them and show them in your quick contacts list. Hovering over a quick contact gives you the options of gmailing that person, viewing their contact details as well as previous conversation history. Once a chat has been initiated it becomes docked in the bottom right of your browser window, which you can undock into a new window. You are even allowed to “go off the record” when talking with someone, which means whatever you type won’t be stored into the Gmail chat logs. That’s a great feature that I can see being used when letting someone know an IP to a server or a password. This way, if your Gmail account was ever compromised you would not be entirely screwed over. It does not seem that you can use the voice feature of Gtalk with the Gtalk in Gmail, but with Skype’s dominance over the market in that area I doubt anyone will miss it.
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Ironic that you mention passwords. I actually use Gmail as a searchable collection of many site passwords. Hopefully I’m not compromised anytime soon, right? ;-)
Hahah, yeah.
By the way, it has come to my attention that only special Gmail accounts are receiving chat support as Google unrolls this new service slowly.
“You are even allowed to “go off the record†when talking with someone, which means whatever you type won’t be stored into the Gmail chat logs.”
Interesting choice of words. Google ‘allows’ you to have privacy. Thanks Google, you’re so kind! ;)
Yea, the thing is still in beta. I can’t beleve it’s been like that for a year.
Google Betas should be taken with a grain of salt.
I don’t think my Gmail account is anything special, but I’m enjoying the chat feature now.
I have the new feature and it works great. Overall, I would say I prefer this integrated chat to running a separate client. Yes, it doesn’t work in Safari at the momenet, but I am sure Safari support is on it’s way.
So is this a critique or a whine about Safari support … this is getting old.
This might actually get me to use IM again even though I gave up on IM (except for occasioanl Skype voice session or iChat video).
Paul,
Nice work on making another top seed on newsvine, really enjoyed the article, as always.
SOON, in GMail terms, and that also in Beta !!
Anyways, very nice article Paul. Have already rolled over the sleeves of my shirt to play around with it. That is once SOON reaches my gmail account.
Hey!
I think that (let’s call it G-Chat) google talk inside gmail is very great!
When you are at school, work, behind a proxy that don’t let you connect with any IM… well.. it is very nice to use gmail chat… you don’t need to install anything, and all your contacts are there!
So I think, it is a great inovation from google (again).
This article is misleading Chat in Gmail does work on Mac, it just doesn’t work in Safari, yet. I tried it on my iBook, and it works fine on Firefox, so its not that it doesn’t work on Mac it doesn’t work in Safari, but they are working on support for the Safari browser.
It sounds pretty cool; my only concern is that GMail will start to be blocked by corporate firewalls as an “IM Service” now. Really not an issue for me, as I have my Treo for e-mail, but I can think of some co-workers who will be disappointed when the firewall team catches on.
thats true….didnt like the window that popsup on every email message.
n s gmail you are so kind for the security features :)
I must be special. I don’t like the new Gmail chat feature. The mouseovers are slow and makes for slower email checking. I wish I could just disable it. But who knows, maybe it will be useful in the future.
It’s all very nice those pop-up windows when I’m hovering over my emails or contacts but they’re actually getting quite irritating. I’d rather switch them off and be able to get them on command but haven’t been able to do that yet.
Any ideas how to switch these windows off?
Michael and others: Concerning turning the chat off, you can do that at the bottom of the page, a small menu called “Gmail view”.
I invited a friend to open a gmail account to chat with him. He did it but in the browser he does not have the quick contact windows and neither the setup chat.
I’ve also tried on the same machine/browser where for me it works, but without success. He also downloaded the GoogleTalk and tried from a different computer this client and this works.
What does not work is the quick contacts within the browser.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Sabrina’s Problem:-
Go to setting of your Googlemail and change the language setting to English(US)
ok for that
hi
i like gmail chat, especially since my network at work does not allow other chat services, today looks like they discovered this one too!
i can t chat anymore and it sucks, does anyone know a way around this? would be greateful if you did!
thanx
heh – found this post cuz I’m lookin to see if anyone knows what’s going on and/or has a workaround to gtalk not workin in Safari – I thought the article was misleading at first too and it’s clear what you meant to say was there isn’t a GTalk.app for us mac folks.
there are times I do find the window positioning a bit annoying but I really do like the fact that an IM client will tote around with me no matter where I go and not have to worry about installs.
having chat logs is awesome for those unfinished conversations – you just hit reply and presto- your conversation is now email!
what would be cool is if I could define the subject or topic of the chat like I’ve seen in Gizmo.
So what’s the dealio with blocking IM clients – we live in a free world!
oh and for the record – my pet peeve is when folks ask you to *pay* for a beta offering! at least our expectations are set and we sure do get a whole lot without any fees (knock on wood) – I just dumped Yahoo! Mail Plus a week ago. They really came through for me quite well for 3-4 years but those guys really started snoozing on using my money for enhancements that make a difference and thus lost my $20/yr! Happy Google woke em up to the times :)
i can t chat anymore and it sucks, does anyone know a way around this? would be greateful if you did!
thanx
i like it googal gtalk