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.
Continue Reading Google Talk and the Great Unwashed