Look, over there! Yet another IM client.

I have to wonder if this will be thing to finally get the Jabber protocol taken seriously.

The native client only works on Windows, and you cannot use the actual “talk” feature with other clients (i.e. Adium X, iChat, etc.) as that part of the protocol is not Jabber-based. An API for that should be available RSN.

Also: you must have a Gmail account to use the service. As much as this reminds me of the “you-must-have-an-MSN-passport” requirement of MSN Messenger, I don’t feel as icky about Google, mainly because they’ve been my e-mail provider for quite awhile now, and they’ve done an admirable job at that.

Anyways, if you care, I’m scott (dot) parkerson (at) gmail (dot) com on Google Talk. This makes the fifth (and hopefully final) IM client that I will be available on.

AN ASIDE: I would not shed a single tear if AIM/ICQ/MSN died in a ball of flames tomorrow, sending everybody scrambling for either Yahoo! or Google Talk. Those two can fight it out in a cage match; indeed, they have been doing just that for years…