{"id":7729,"date":"2005-08-26T10:52:36","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T17:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/08\/26\/its-not-a-bug-its-a-feature.html"},"modified":"2005-08-26T10:52:36","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T17:52:36","slug":"its_not_a_bug_i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/08\/26\/its_not_a_bug_i.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s not a bug, it’s a feature"},"content":{"rendered":"

A review of Google Talk<\/a> that I’ve heard echoes of elsewhere:<\/p>\n

Google Talk has launched, and I’ll give you my mini-review right now. Welcome to the Stone Age of instant messaging!<\/p>\n

Google Talk is clean and easy to use. It’s also absent almost every feature found in other IM clients. Want to send a file? Pshaw! Want to have a group chat? You’re too social! Want to view your previous chat sessions easily? Get outta here! Want little emoticons? Skins? Go bug somebody else! Google Talk is Spartan in the way that the Lacedemonians were Spartan: it seems ancient!<\/em><\/p>\n

You know what? I really don’t care.<\/em><\/p>\n

Fact is, I don’t want to send files<\/strong> via IM. Sending files via IM is one reason why IM is banned in most companies. It’s a huge security hole. When I want to send a file, I use e-mail. I realize that’s very 2000, but there you go.<\/p>\n

Group chat<\/strong>? Not something I do. I am sure there are folks who do. I’m not one of them. <\/p>\n

Emoticons<\/strong>? Frankly, I’ve grown weary of endless expansion of the emoticon lists in various IM clients, sometimes including, unbelievably, pay-for emoticons. I’m also irked by subtle differences between the emoticons of different IM clients, which render what’s really being emoted ambiguous. I don’t want to learn to read body language in my IM client. I like that Google Talk sees emoticons, and highlights\/bolds them, but doesn’t interpret them into more elaborate customized animated images.<\/p>\n

Hell, I’m tired of entering “(a)” and “(b)” to illustrate points in MSN Messenger and having them changed into an angel and a beer stein.<\/p>\n

Chat logs<\/strong>? Some clients don’t track previous chats at all, though Google appears to. It’s presently clumsy to do, but, well, damn, this is a beta, folks, and free; I suspect that functionality will show up Real Soon Now. I’ve needed to reference back to a previous IM chat twice in the last two years, so this isn’t a huge thing to me. <\/p>\n

Maybe the problem is that, while I use IM on occasion (most of all inside of CoH, but occasionally in real life), it’s not a central focus of my social life. Just like the phone. I don’t need canned laughter (emoticons), I don’t need group chat (conference calling). I don’t need recordings of my phone calls (chat logs) to see what was previously said. I don’t need — well, whatever the equivalent of sending files would be on phones.<\/p>\n

Maybe the problem is that I originally started using IM back on an old VM\/CMS mainframe system, where — basically — we could send a text message. Emoticons hadn’t even been invented yet. Hell, we’d just gotten rid of the cuneiform tablets the week before … but, at any rate, my initial expectations were low, and they really haven’t increased since then.<\/p>\n

IM is, for me, something easier and more real-time than e-mail, but less demanding than phone calls. Google Talk does that just fine, and if it were the only IM client in the world, I would shed very few tears. <\/p>\n

Or, as someone else has said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

While Google Talk has nothing that special really, it?s already my IM of choice because it has less to dislike <\/em>than the other chat apps I?ve tried. Better to be clutter-free and simple than to have some good features along with a dozen you feel like turning off.<\/p>\n

Now if only I can figure out a way to get my remaining MSN Messenger correspondents to make use of it. That would get rid of one of the other three IM clients I have to maintain …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A review of Google Talk that I’ve heard echoes of elsewhere: Google Talk has launched, and I’ll give you my mini-review right now. Welcome to the Stone Age of instant…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13438,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/12\/sms_chat_from_gmail.html","url_meta":{"origin":7729,"position":0},"title":"SMS Chat from Gmail","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-Dec-08 11:02am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd rather that Google were spending a bit more time adding some recent features into the Google Talk client, but clearly Google is more focused on chat-like things out of...","rel":"","context":"In "My Computer"","block_context":{"text":"My Computer","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/my-computer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11975,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/12\/19\/gtalk_as_a_pocket_transla.html","url_meta":{"origin":7729,"position":1},"title":"GTalk as a pocket translater","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Dec-07 8:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cool beans.\u00a0 Google has created some automated translation bots that work through Google Talk \/ Chat.\u00a0 Send them a message, and they'll send back the appropriate translation (subject to normal...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10172,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/18\/google_talk_upd.html","url_meta":{"origin":7729,"position":2},"title":"Google Talk update","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-Aug-06 6:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"Look! It's the World's Least Urgent Features! Well, not altogether true. But not much in the new Google Talk upgrade has me excited. File transfer: Look! Another reason for sysadmins...","rel":"","context":"In "My Computer"","block_context":{"text":"My Computer","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/my-computer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12508,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/07\/new_google_talk_kinda.html","url_meta":{"origin":7729,"position":3},"title":"New Google Talk … kinda","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Apr-08 9:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"Google has issued a new \"Labs Edition\" of Google Talk. It pulls in some features from the Google Talk gadget -- but, unfortunately, drops file transfer (which I never use)...","rel":"","context":"In "My Computer"","block_context":{"text":"My Computer","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/my-computer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9406,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/13\/m_and_yahoo_lin.html","url_meta":{"origin":7729,"position":4},"title":"M$ and Yahoo! link IM networks","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Jul-06 1:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Micro$oft and Yahoo! have put together a bridge between their respective IM systems, allowing users of one to address and send messages to users of the other. Cool. Mind you,...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16616,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/29\/new-machine-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink.html","url_meta":{"origin":7729,"position":5},"title":"New machine: Everything and the Kitchen Sink","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 29-Jan-10 7:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So besides Browsery stuff (and in addition to my Firefox and Chrome configs, I've installed LastPass and Xmarks for IE8), what-all else am I burdening my poor new work PC with ...? 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