Now even Google talks

Google has been hogging limelight over past 48 hours, with its new IM client. First came the speculations, then the news and GOOG market-cap rose almost a bn within an hour.

Apparently Google Talk is running Jabber, which is an open protocol. All one need is a Jabber-compatible Instant Messaging client (such as Apple's iChat, or GAIM), and a GMail address.

So whats all this hype about. There has been talks of Google talk coming with VoIP features, and which would be in direct competition with Yahoo and Skype. The latter being the big daddy of VoIP messaging. While Yahoo is well-known Jack of All Trades, though has been victim of Google's success in search business.

Skype, with over 51 million users, is celebrating its second anniversary next week by opening up its platform to anyone who wants to integrate Skype’s presence and instant messaging services into their website or application.

Now, Jabber, which Om Malik calls "Voice-over-IM Technology", is linked with AOL too. Do I see some extreme interoperability here? Wait and watch!

Update: Google Talk is indeed available for download, and interoperable with other clients as expected, though voice facilities are available only with Google's own client, requiring Windows.