Google Me, Damnit!

Google has launched their new instant messenger service, and it is good.

Google Talk actually went online last night (well, their Jabber server did, anyway), but they actually released their own client this morning.

It's a pretty nice program. The client itself is completely ad-free, which immediately makes it a more pleasant experience than AIM, and features full integration with Gmail. In fact, you need a Gmail account to use Google Talk.

The service also features a voice chat feature, which Google apparently plans to expand to a full-blown voip service, and a nifty little Gmail notifier, which is almost completely useless to me since I already have one through Firefox.

The coolest thing about Google Talk, though, is that an instant message to an offline buddy is automatically routed to their Gmail account. Yes - yes, I know. Super keen, indeed.

Eventually, the Google Talk client is supposed to have interconnectivity with other services (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc.), but, right now, it's just Google. You can, however, access your Google Talk account through multi-client programs like GAIM or Trillian, but you'll be missing out on a lot of the service's features.