Google Opens Up Its IM And VoIP
It is the common strategy for leaders in a "winner take all" sector try to isolate their users, while the stragglers always argue for interconnectivity and group-up with the other stragglers. So, although its a breath of fresh air, it's not really much of a surprise that Google has announced that any standards-supporting group can interconnect with their VoIP and IM community on Google Talk. The range of communities that can now interconnect with Google Talk includes those that use the XMPP and SIP protocols: Earthlink, Gizmo Project, Tiscali, Netease, Chikka, MediaRing, and any other standard-compliant ISP, university, corporation, or individual. This is good news for the "open source" movement who doesn't like "belonging" to any vendor like an AOL. It allows people to join a community that doesn't "belong" to anyone, and Google brings a fair amount of heft and momentum to that movement. This is a poke in the sides for MSFT, Yahoo, AOL, and SkypeBay (EBaype?)Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: voip