the wolf has gone mad!
This is more like a romanian saying derived from a well known tv ad and originally in romanian it sounds like: "a innebunit lupu'!".
It was the first thing that popped into my coffee needing brain this morning when the news hit me: Google just launched "Google Talk beta" a new IM software and service that also supports audio calling.
I dont't know the inner workings but it seems to be very tolerant towards supporting other IM clients as a service. It communicates very well with gmail offcourse and the voice chats seem to use upto only 4K of bandwidth while the sound quality is very good!
Well it seems that there's nothing that others can do and these guys can't improve and release for free. So far it's "thumb's up Google!" but from somewhere deep into my primordial fears the Vader Star Wars theme begins to sound even louder.
[Taaa taaa taaa taa taraaaaaa ...]
It was the first thing that popped into my coffee needing brain this morning when the news hit me: Google just launched "Google Talk beta" a new IM software and service that also supports audio calling.
I dont't know the inner workings but it seems to be very tolerant towards supporting other IM clients as a service. It communicates very well with gmail offcourse and the voice chats seem to use upto only 4K of bandwidth while the sound quality is very good!
Well it seems that there's nothing that others can do and these guys can't improve and release for free. So far it's "thumb's up Google!" but from somewhere deep into my primordial fears the Vader Star Wars theme begins to sound even louder.
[Taaa taaa taaa taa taraaaaaa ...]
posted by cosmin at 10:50 AM
4 Comments:
Yeah, Google Talk already had received a big welcome among my friends and my coworkers...
Currently, I do not see any advantage of Google Talk over the Skype, but we will see how it will go with support of other clients at different OS platforms (claimed support for iCal at Mac, for example).
For example, vSkype is not supported on Mac (video communication plugin for SKype, which is pity...)
If Google Talk will support video and conference calls, then we have a strong competitor to Skype :)
Well we tested skype agains gTalk exthensively yesterday with our offices in Germany. The idea was to use vskype with skype for teleconferencing. I dunno what the internet costs are in Kiev but here in Cluj they're pretty high so all we have is a 380 line. Skype always bothered me because the lack of setting a lower sound quality. When it cannot send the audio it just chokes and you lose half a sentence. When I first opened gTalk I noticed that it shows real time stas for the uploads and dloads and there I saw the under 4k usage. When the bandwidth shrinks the sound gets distorted but u can still catch the sentence.
The final sollution we came up with was using vSkype just for video (audio muted) and gTalk for audio. I tell you, on our connection gTalk has a much better sound quality than skype.
Btw, gTalk supports the XIFF protocol so if you put that together with this maybe you get something I've always dreamed to build. My own flash audio messenger without FlashCom. And who knows, maybe video too.
And hey, I'm just a developer so heavy graphics in a IM client just don't make my day. I like gtalk because it's slim and fast. Just two buttons, some links and a lot of genius behind.
Skype has a nice interface and it is well recognized globally already.
Also, we use Skype-Out feature to make PC2Phone internatioanl calls.
Internet cost in Kiev (Kyiv) are high.. We currently end up paying 500$ montly per 512 line. =-/
Well then the internet it's about the same. Maybe the quality of service is different. But probably that is the same too. Meaning bad to very bad. Well if you rely on pc2phone also then skype is definetly the sollution. But Google is cooking something, no doubt about it...
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