A lot of people have referred to Google Talk as "open
source," but the source isn't open; it just happens to be using an
open protocol called Jabber -- similar to how web browsers like Internet Explorer use open protocols called HTTP and HTML.
Google's supporters make a big deal about how you can use non-Google Jabber clients to connect to Google Talk, but somebody using a non-Google Jabber client doesn't benefit Google at all,
so eventually they'll start adding new features...and those new features
won't immediately work on other Jabber clients, even if Google publishes the standard...which brings us back to the early days of
the browser wars, where Netscape would add non-standard (or not-yet-standard) features that
didn't work on Mosaic or Lynx.
The real question people should be asking is "will my teenaged sister
switch to Google Talk?" I bet the answer is no, because all her friends
are still on Yahoo, and she thinks the hidden piggy emoticon* is the
cutest thing ever.
Google's making a lot of decisions based on what their own employees would
want to use, which I'm sure makes it a great company to work for...but probably
doesn't assure long-term product viability. Bay area geeks (including
me) are a niche market; so are bloggers, tech magazine reporters, and
VC analysts. The great unwashed still type search terms into the first
box they see, and have no idea where the list of results comes from.
* the hidden piggy emoticon in Yahoo! Messenger is :@)
A few days ago, my friend Neil gave a brief answer to the question "Spamfighter, howcome you got into spamfighting?" I get asked that a lot, too -- and while my answers vary depending on my mood at the time (and usually go on way longer than the questi
Tracked: Oct 21, 10:11