Instant Messaging and VoIP Now Offered By Google

Believe it or not, Google still has room to expand. Google recently announced plans for their new ‘Google Talk’, an instant messaging and web-based voice communication program. This is an already teeming market which includes the likes of AOL, Microsoft, Skype and Yahoo!

The instant messaging portion of the program follows their expansion into e-mail, news aggregation and mapping. The voice communication portion of the program allows for long distance calls to be made between compatible computers for free, otherwise known as VoIP or voice over internet protocol. Though not the first to offer VoIP, Google is sure to become a major competitor given their prominence and marketing power.

A trial version of Google Talk is available at http://www.google.com/talk/, though users must have a Google Gmail account in order to use it. Speakers and a microphone or a computer-ready headset are needed in order to utilize the computer-to-computer calling. As a sidebar, Google also announced their ‘Google Sidebar’ this week, a program allowing a user to display on their desktop such customized information as stock information, news headlines and the like.

With this news, Google appears to be becoming a bigger Internet media player, bringing them one step closer toward total Internet domination.