Now I’ll preface this with the fact that I haven’t tried Google Talk. I realize it’s just another Jabber client, and I can connect to it using any Jabber-capable client, but the Mac in the office can’t use the voice-calling features that I think are cool (actually, the only version available is the Windows 2000/XP version, Mac and Linux users are waved to their favorite Jabber-capable client) and at home I can’t think of many reasons to use it over my trusty IM client.
This is the problem though inherent with Google Talk. There’s no one on it, and no real compelling reason to switch to it aside from the fact that it’s cool and it’s Google, but that’s not really enough, and since I don’t know anyone on it, I’m probably not going to switch until there are people I know. Granted it takes time, but it looks like there isn’t much of a flood to move, and no features that absolutely make me want to move. And Wired News reviewer Simon Burns agrees with me, and sees some of the same flaws in the new project that I do. His article is a more in-depth than mine, but it’s definitely worth a read. Here’s to Google Talk’s success, but they’ll have to make the service really compelling in order to get more users.
[ http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68642,00.html]