Google has certainly been busy as of late. They launched another new program recently, this one called Google Talk:

They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free. Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free-anytime, anywhere in the world. Google Talk is in beta and requires a Gmail username and password.

Another instant messaging client? Last thing I need, let me tell you. But curious as I am, I downloaded it tonight and tried it out (Dickson did too, so I’d have someone to chat with). Interesting enough, and simple to install, but largely a waste of my time. Here’s why:

• This has got to be the most basic IM client in the world! Dickson created a better one for his class project last year.
• You can’t change anything. Not your display name, not your font, not your font color, nothing.
• No emoticons! Just colored text instead.
• The application looks and feels like a web page – no doubt by design.

The program also has voice chat, and that feature appeared to work quite well. Essentially what it boils down to though is that it’s not good enough for me to replace my main IM client. I use MSN Messenger (feel free to add me, mastermaq@hotmail.com, just don’t email me there). Google Talk is an interesting experiment, but it doesn’t come close to being good enough to replace MSN, nor does it look like it will anytime soon. Heck, Skype and Yahoo Messenger are both light years beyond Google Talk. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that all of my contacts would need to have Google Talk too.

I suspect the only reason this program was created is so that Google staff can talk to one another using their own network, nothing more. Unless the second beta looks amazing, you won’t find me on Google Talk anytime soon.

Read: Google Talk