Once known strictly as a search engine company, Google Inc. has once again made waves by launching its own version of an instant messaging (IM) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service called Google Talk.
The new service is a late entry into a field dominated by established IM programs from AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft, and VoIP services such as Skype, Vonage, and Lingo. Nonetheless, the industry takes notice with even the slightest manoeuvre from Google. The Internet “blogosphere” and newspapers were therefore filled with rumours, critiques, and praise for the initial beta version of Talk released by the Mountain View, California company.
Critics’ comments ranged from questioning Google’s sanity to proclaiming Talk the global Skype-killer. Criticism came mostly from Skype users, as this release by Google is a direct challenge to the Luxembourg-based company’s dominance of the free VoIP market.
Google is deft at employing the “law of scarcity” marketing principle. Accessing Talk requires an account with Google’s semi-exclusive free e-mail service, Gmail. An indication of Google’s “viral marketing” finesse is that Google will allow each Talk user to give away up to 50 Gmail/Talk accounts to family and friends. With all the acclaim that has followed Google’s simple yet elegant email solution, expect a rapid flow of early adopters of Talk.
In another crafty manoeuvre, Google has nudged its way into the telecommunications world by collecting users’ cellular phone numbers during Gmail account creation. A passcode is sent via text message to the user’s cellular phone to complete registration. For users who checked the box for bulletins and alerts to be sent to their cellular phone, Google’s marketing and advertising platform has fully crossed over to the telecommunications arena.
Google chose an open standard to give users a choice of communication platforms. This will allow Talk users to exchange messages with users of various other IM clients, such as Apple’s iChat and GAIM, a free IM client popular with Linux users.
Google’s decision to encrypt all Talk traffic won favour with security-minded users, but with Talk running through proxy servers rather than following Skype’s peer-to-peer lead, conversations are temporarily decrypted at Google’s servers. This would permit Google to track the topics users discuss, so as to present them with more targeted ads later. At the same time, this design may pose a concern for users in countries with tight state control of the Internet, since it permits censorship and remote monitoring; the abundance of reports regarding Google’s kowtow to the Chinese Communist government on censorship demands, coupled with the high-profile opening of a Chinese R&D center, suggest that some users may wish to watch their words.
We are just beginning to see Google’s plans unveil as the company expands its business activities across multiple industry segments.
Google recently launched its Desktop 2 software, which features a Windows “sidebar” application with a desktop search function, and on August 18, the company announced that it will issue up to 14.8 million new shares to raise as much as US$4 billion in equity.
Already rumours are surfacing that Google is busy working on an Internet browser to compete directly with Microsoft’s dominant Internet Explorer. As Google continues to confound industry experts and Wall Street analysts with every move, are the prospects of a Google operating system not too far-fetched?
Pick your favourites and hedge your stock bets, folks: the Dot-com Era 2.0 is underway.