Google Instant Messenger all Rumor

Jbravo writes "Search, blogging, maps, photos, email, and now a portal, Google has kept adding to their array of services. Is an instant messenger next for Google? Most recently Google has been said to be buying out a company called Meetroduction, LLC for their instant messenger Meetro. So, is it true? Is Google writing the check now? Well, after a chat with Paul Bragiel, CEO of Meetroduction, the word is not right now. He called the whole story 'rumors.'"

Rumors and denials

[Junior J. Junior III]

Denials are almost a sure sign that something is up. Rumors, I don't know. But every time a company denies something, it seems it's actually confirmed shortly thereafter.

Too many already

[ilyaaohell]

Any company trying to roll out yet another instant messenger would be making a mistake. There are already three uber-popular, incompatible networks, not to mention the handful of smaller protocols. None of them really offer anything that the others don't have. Enough is enough.

As much as it would be cool...

[theotherlight]

we really don't need another IM program. I'll consider trying it, but I think the general IM'ing population won't want to change.

I'll change in a second -- and tell all of my friends to change -- if, somehow, it just blows everything else out of the water. This, however, seems unlikely.

The way it usually works....

[gouber]

considered rumor only from now until it actually gets announced....

"Rumours" is not a denial.

[Angostura]

.. It is, to use the old phrase "a non-denial denial".

If the guy had said "It's just rumours and there is absolutely no truth in it" that would be one thing. Just saying "it's a rumour" is the polite equivalent of "no comment".

I would imagine that Paul Bragiel and his company is quite enjoying the attention, so it's not in his interests to decisively quash these rumours, so he's left things a little ambiguous.

Google buying its technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that MS has to take a lot of flack here for using its "unfair" financial advantage to buy out companies for their tech (drawing comparisons to a vampire) whereas it has been perfectly okay for Google to do the same.

Re:Too many already

[A beautiful mind]

and IRC from 1988 still beats them hands down.

Re:Too many already

[ilyaaohell]

I don't know what you're trying to say, so I'm guessing you're just trying to score some mod points here. IRC is designed for group conversations, AIM/MSN/Yahoo is designed for person-to-person conversations. Having said that, those IM services also have fully functional chat room capabilities. So basically it's just like IRC, only with more functionality and centered around people who keep a regular network of friends.

But hey, I'm sure that you've already earned yourself some "Insightful" points from someone, so mission accomplished.

Re:Google buying its technology?

[sethadam1]

There's a perfectly good reason for that. Google has not used their purchases to smash their competitors out of existence. Take for example, Picasa. Used, publicized, integrated, and yet not accompanied by a huge push to take over that sector of the market. Or how about Gmail - beta pretty much forever, and then when it become open, there's no push to steal Hotmail or Yahoo customers. How about Blogger? There are APIs all over the place.

Google hasn't been "evil" with their purchases. In fact, pretty much everything they bought they starting giving away for free.

Re:Hello?

[Takumi2501]

From TFA:

Google already has an instant messenger. "Hello" is a product that they received along with Picasa.

right move

[rafi]

people are saying: "next IM? -no space on the net", but the same was with email - there were also thousends of mail providers before google and anyway google succeded!

Why not?

[t_allardyce]

Google could take IM any day, if they bought skype they wouldnt even need to do much re-branding!

Im still waiting for google calendar, theres just no good calander/task program thats remote, syncable, and cross-platform, unless im missing something..

Re:Too many already

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Depends on the job you're doing. No webcams, voicechat, direct ims(read: pictures inside convos, great for screenshots), or any other 'rich' features

IRC is extendable enough that you can add it, and a few clients have tried in the past(VIRC), but theyre just not standardized enough to rely on.
Tis a shame too If someone made a nice client that actually offered these features it'd save me and my friends a lot of time/effort having to switch between irc/aim depending on what is needed. I of course prefer irc when possible, but if I have a screenshot in my buffer, I'd rather click direct connect and right click -> paste picture than open ms paint, paste, save to disk, /dcc send nick (path to one-off screenshot), delete screenshot.

Re:How about fixing GMail first?

[generic-man]

That'll teach you to entrust your e-mail to a beta service.

Re:The future is Google

[thrillseeker]

a GoogleOS thin-client is not far off. Why? The things that most people do don't require even a 10th the functionality of Windows

Actually, many people are slowly finding they need 10 times the functionality that the Windows variants provide. That's why other OS's exist and will continue to exist. Realize that functionality can be measured in many ways - freedom isn't free, for one thing - it requires work, whether in a democracy or an effort to have free (from control by others) software.

Google is lead by people smart enough to recognize that Microsoft views them as a threat, and so, by fiat, Microsoft is a threat to Google. A world in which Google did not have to worry about loss of search effort (and hence loss of eyeballs to the advertising revenue they capture) to Microsoft or to others is a world in which Google makes more money. A weaker Microsoft that would have to make decisions on concentrating its resources on its bread-and-butter Office (threatened by OpenOffice, for one), and on its OS, which is its starting point for its huge market capitalization, is a world in which Microsoft is not gaining revenue from search, or from IM, etc.

IMO, Google could do far worse than to figure out how to make Firefox even more useful and how to make Gaim even more useful, and how to make Sunbird a useful product, and how to make a free Exchange-like product that tied 'em all together, and acted as a chat server, and so on, and to give those things away, and encourage their use. Less Microsoft presence in those areas means a retrenched Microsoft not dipping into the search engine advertising revenue stream.

Revenue Source?

[PR0UD_INFIDEL]

Most important for any service that Google provides that makes it out of beta is revenue generation. If it doesn't make money, there is no need to pour cash and brainpower in to develop it. So, how would Google make money? I see three posibilities. First would be to use the standard model of banner ads that infest the tops of AIM. Second would be to sell the product, like DeadAim http://www.jdennis.net/ [jdennis.net] or Trillian Pro http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/ [ceruleanstudios.com]. Both of these solutions are not typical of Google products. The last option would be for contextual ads, like in GMail. This is an option that would be very server intensive (real time ad generation) and creepy, as Google would be reading all the messages that go in and out. So, in summation, instant messaging does not seem to be a market that appeals to the core of Google's buisness plan. Changes may arise, but all in all, this seems like a venture that Google would stay out of.

Re:The future is Google

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Actually, many people are slowly finding they need 10 times the functionality that the Windows variants provide.

No. geeks may be "slowly finding" this, but the "average user" is not. The "average user" has and continues to have a very well defined profile of things that they do. Games, image management, email, IM. The "average user" has no clue about much of what is discussed at Slashdot, and even less interest.

Re:Perhaps not the right approach for the market

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the proliferation of ICQ, AIM, MSN, and YM? After all, we all had IRC before those, right? How about different telephone numbers? People have a lot of different contact points in various areas that they only share with certain people. Take for instance your Slashdot account. Do you tell your grandmother what your Slashdot account is, so that she can reply to your comments? No, right? Ah, but here you and I are conversing.

"People Won't Come"

[Gamefreak99]

That's a bunch of rubbish. Think of the millions of hits Google get's a day. Now, just pop a little thing on there saying "New! Google IM!" and boom: the majority of Slashdot and the internet tech crowd downloads it. It goes into the paper the next day generating more downloads. I don't think they would even need to do a gaim type thing and crossover to AIM and whatnot.

Think of the possibilities though. The ability to google any text someone sends you. Online and offline chat (ala ICQ) via Gmail (maybe set it up so that if you're offline and someone tries to send you a message its forwarded to your Gmail account or something). They could do all sorts of fun stuff.

Think *BROWSER-BASED* IM

[galdur]

We can remember it for you wholesale.

That's what GMail does today, so where's the weak link? IM, where people do communicate a lot of information which gets lost to those who don't keep logs. There's already a very usable Webmessenger for MSN. Having this server-based means the log are available from anywhere. Heck, just getting rid of having a separate e-mail and IM program filling up my RAM my well be worth it.

IM is all well and good, but ...

[lesv]

It would really be nice if they stopped attacking in all directions and actually fixed something. Ok, they've got some really great technologies, such as Search and advertising. Orkut was a good idea, just not well implemented and a bit dated now. Scholar.google.com also a good idea but with out decent content, it might as well not exist.

Google needs focus. I'd really rather they stayed best at everything they choose to do, rather than attack in all directions.

Re:AJAX? Are you crazy?

[d99-sbr]

I don't get this. Most systems, not to mention most users already have a rendering engine running. Using it to access an online IM system can't be a performance issue.

I just think it makes a lot more sense to keep applications that require online presence... online!