Then read this thread over at Slashdot. “How Google Could Overthrow AIM.”
Classic line: ” I don’t think that “Gim” is going to fly — I failed it in high school, and don’t want any more to do with it.”
But seriously, there has been a fair amount of talk about what Google might do next. And IM is not exactly a bad idea. I’d wager it’s made their Top 100 list.
I’d wager its already built and has a search interface buddy, blogger buddy. Imagine giving the google engine a personality & voice. I sure they could use IM to develop “search” as we know it. Imagine a engine asking you to refine your question, or actually having a conversation based on the goal your trying to achieve.
Once again we get gifted with a simple convergence application, only thing now is the red tape they have to jump through before we get to play with it.
John Rhodes posted about Google getting into IM just after Gmail launched:
The third reason for my prediciton is that in order for GooOS to be a reality, you need IM. Gotta have IM for GooOS. Perhaps they’ll do something with Jabber? As the Jabber site indicates, Jabber is Open, Standard, Proven, Decentralized, Secure, Extensible, and Flexible. Sounds like something the Google folks would love to use.
I have thought about this recently too. Google recently acquired Picassa, mainly for their photo-blogging tools. But Picassa comes with an IM tool called Hello, which is mainly focued on photo sharing. But Google now has an IM app – what direction will they take with it?