Mon 24 Jul 2006
GTalk only had 44,000 users during June?
Posted by admin under Uncategorized
[8] Comments
Techcruch reports on Comscore’s Instant Messenger marketshare report, focusing on the low number reported for GTalk. However, they appear to be reporting on the usage of the GChat client application only, which would mean that actual GTalk (via GMail) usage would be significantly higher. Google appears to be trying to disrupt the IM market by offering a web-based chat client, and allowing interperation via the Jabber protocol. This (disrupting an established market by trying to change the parameters of that market) is a pretty obvious strategy.
Ignoring the gratuitous (and probably mis-founded) Google bashing, the other interesting thing to come from that report is the significant lead that MSN Messenger has over its rivals.
July 24th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Hey, really smart comment on that GMail post. I had no clue that MSN Messenger had such a wide lead over it’s competitors. I wonder who will eventually overtake them?
July 24th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Thanks Justin,
With the wide lead that MSN has now, along with control of the operating system I don’t see anyone overtaking them in pure IM for a long time.
Their threats come from non-traditonal IM sources, such as Skype.
July 25th, 2006 at 8:28 am
Gtalk is far superior to all the other IM programs. The problem is that it is not widely promoted or advertised for. You can only be a part of it is you are invited to it by another Gmail, Google user.
For those of use who use Gmail, Calendar and all the other Google features, Gtalk is the next logical step, for those who don’t or who are technophobic, it is just another IM program, in a sea of IM programs.
Most people will use what their firneds or co-workers use, simply because it is easier and less of a hassle.
July 25th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
I use GTalk everyday, and love it. It is simple and clean, and with no banner adds. GTalk has got the IM killer feature (IMHO), and that is that all GTalk conversations are stored within my GMail account! The GTalk chats are stored like emails, and they can be searched, labeled, and reply’ed upon from within GMail.
Super app!
Now I just need to convince the all the sorry users on huge my MSN buddy list to make the switch…
July 27th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
The main problem with Google Talk is the lack of the features of other instant messengers. It even doesn’t have a file transfer feature. But I suppose it will be widely used after introduction of video chat and other capabilities.
July 27th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Yes, I agree that the lack of file transfer is a big problem with Google Chat at the moment. It’s kind of surprising that they implemented voice chat (which in a way is a super-set of the file tranfer problem) prior to introducing plain file transfer.
December 11th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
I came across the MOJI Intelligent Messenger featuring 3D artificial life forms..get this…WITHIN an instant messenger that combines AI and computational linguistics..what do you think about this? does it actually work? if virtual pets can “live” in an IM and understand what we are talking about what next man?
December 11th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
AI chat bots have been around for a long time (Eliza, etc). I think it’s fair to say that most don’t stand up to any serious conversation.