So, why doesn’t everyone just use one open network? Good question!

This is my opinion on Google Talk. There’s nothing particularly special about the Talk client. Probably its most prominent feature is its VOIP capability. I find that this feature works great and the quality is amazing. This isn’t necessarily ground breaking technology or anything. It’s been around for years. It seems like a lot of people seem to think Google is trying to pass something old off as new. There is also a fair amount of people who don’t see what all the hype is about, understandable. For me the hype isn’t about the current client, its more about Google entering the I/M world. It’s more of what Talk could become. Talk may get compared to how Gmail entered the email world and has become relatively successful. I don’t think it’s really the best comparison, though.

There’s one big challenge Talk will face that Gmail didn’t. That’s the simply fact that Talk will have to get people to leave closed networks of friends. With email you can still email your friends if you’re using Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, it doesn’t matter. This is defiantly going to be hard. It seems to me what instant messenger you use is greatly influenced by were you live. Here in Arizona “instant messenger” means AIM. Hardly anyone but the tech literate know of MSN messenger or Yahoo.

So, why doesn’t everyone just use one open network? Good question! Jabber is an open decentralized network. The thing is Google decided that its Talk server would only communicate with pre-arranged, arguably more populated jabber servers. Jabber has the right idea, one decentralized network. It should work much like email; after all it wouldn’t be right if @gmail.com could only email other @gmail.com’s. That’s the way instant messaging is. Google simply messed up a good thing. The way it should work is as follows. I (someone@gmail.com) send an instant message to coolperson@jabber.com that message goes to the jabber.com server and then to coolperson himself. As you can see it’s similar to email, with its different servers and usernames. What Google did was close its server off to the rest of the jabber servers. All it did was create another semi-closed network. I guess semi-closed is an improvement over closed. It is federating with other jabber servers, but it still isn’t open. It’s going to be interesting if Google will open its doors to the rest of the jabber world or simply create another semi-closed network.