Jun
From Yahoo! Messenger to Gtalk
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A long long time ago there was a service called Yahoo! Messenger. Even I used to be a very loyal customer of Yahoo! Messenger, such a loyal customer that even when I went to a cyber cafe for a public computer I user to always sign into Yahoo! Messenger first. Yahoo! Messenger was the lifeline of campuses, for communication with friends, gf/bf, random chat and everything else. But that was ofcourse a long time ago!
Soon there was the entry of another IM system and it just blew Yahoo! messenger away. Google does have this habit of turning the tables around for its competitors and with Yahoo! messenger it did the same. Today most of my friends don’t even login for Yahoo! messenger and many will even have problems remembering their ids. But the important question to address is that why did a successful system like Yahoo! lose to a new system gtalk? and to top it all gtalk did not have a lot of features which Yahoo! messenger had (no emoticons, no sound etc etc)
IM is for Contacts: When you have an instant messenger, it is to connect with people and to be able to talk to them instantly. Gtalk was able to gain a significant advantage over Yahoo! messenger because of Orkut and Gmail. If a person used Orkut he could instantly add all his orkut friends on gtalk with just one click. Moreover with gmail it meant that any person you email a couple of times will also get added to your contacts in Gtalk. No more trouble of adding people which Yahoo! Messenger had.- Ease of loading: Google provided multiple ways to use gtalk, as a desktop application and in the browser. Being able to chat through a browser became a boon for gtalk as now anyone could sit on any public computer, just login into gmail and chat with everyone. The need for installing a software which Yahoo! Messenger had was gone!
- Ever Increasing Features: Although gtalk started very small but the additions to its list of features has been amazing! From emoticons to voice and then even video chat. I did not even think that using just a browser people can video chat but gtalk made it possible. Thus gtalk even gained further marketshare by launching explosive new applications while Yahoo! messenger development almost remained idle.
I guess a lot of people will say that Instant Messengers are fads. Earlier there were AOL, MiRC and other IMs. Next came Yahoo! messenger and captured the market and now it is Gtalk. Maybe they are correct and maybe Facebook or something else can even replace Gtalk but it will require a lot of significant improvements. Gtalk has set the bar higher and for any service to beat it is a really big challenge.
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15 Responses to “From Yahoo! Messenger to Gtalk”
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nice!!!!
Nice post. Another point I think is that Gtalk, in all its forms, is extremely light. Installation and running it takes no time and it never hangs. The chats are saved in the already awesome Gmail interface. Also, as someone had pointed out in the comments section of a previous Google related post, Google has so well integrated its all its services, that it is difficult to step out of it. In fact, personally, before joining my Post Graduate college, I never used GTalk. It was always Yahoo Messenger. But switching was inevitable, because everything slowly moved into the Google world!
And with Google Wave releasing this year, Google will plan to make its integration reach the highest level of things. In my opinion, they intend to destroy Facebook and Twitter with Google Wave
Gtalk also records the chat logs and makes them searchable in Gmail.
one more thing abt the set up Google Talk setup has 1.45 MB, Yahoo Messenger has 9.5 MB
that is edge over yahoo messenger
Great Article!
Gmail was inherently well publicized, initially it was “by invite” only and that really caught on quick. Thus the IM Integration into the gmail browser made it an excellent bit of business and an even better usability experience. Even on other OSs like Linux, you could open your browser and be done with chatting without the need of any installation.
On a personal front, I dont much like gtalk. The connection strength is not as reliable as some of the other apps, gmail itself isn’t the world’s greatest mail app and gtalk is way too buggy (sucky college connection provided the acid test which it promptly failed). However it is, usability wise, the best thing around so far. Lets wait and watch for Wave
@Atul
I wouldn’t say Facebook and Twitter are targets. Google wave is going to integrate chat, mail, collaborative editing, bots and much more, and take cloud computing to a new level. It has the potential to become the backbone for something like Web 3.0.
Facebook and Twitter will have to move to a Wave-based platform and will have to compete with a thousand other wave-based websites which will crop up, because Wave will make it so damn simple.
For that matter it is conceivable that even Wikipedia will probably have to move to a Wave based platform… and companies can have sales tracking, attendance, meetings and all kinds of stuff on Wave. This might be the very definition of Disruptive Innovation.
Interoperability has been the cornerstone of Google tools. With just one google account, i can do everthing: mail,chat,edit documents,and what not!
its for so much ease and convenience.
Also..i can call and chat over video free! This was like the most important thing for me when i came to the usa as a student and wanted to connect home. Not that i didnt have yahoo voice and video chat. But nothing like the convenience that Gtalk offers!!
I am not sure how great gtalk is, I think the chunk of the reason why it took off is because we have a Google Wave. I am not talking about the technology this company is coming out with, but these days, we happily adopt every new idea Google comes out with, without giving a look to what its competitors offer.
We wouldn’t know that Google copied gtalk in the gmail idea from AOL. Most of the *new* features Google offers are already there in the old IM’s. Albeit Yahoo was late to start adding them to its web client.
And since Google runs on the XML based Jabber protcol, it can slow things down for you if you use a GPRS or a slow data card connection.
Check out pidgin .. you have gtalk, yahoo, msn … all in one
I think there is one aspect which you missed in your article. Yahoo has the option of Chat rooms whereas Gtalk has none.
Based on the reason why people use IM they can be classified into two categories:
1> People using it for random chats/networking: Yahoo has retained this user segment as they have the option of chat rooms which are classified into different categories.
2> People using IM strictly for being in touch with friends/colleagues: In addition to all the reasons mentioned in your blog, spamming was a big problem this user segment faced on Yahoo IM primarily because of chat rooms. This is the segment captured by gtalk
Also when people were mostly using Yahoo IM, not all had in use yahoo mail accounts. Many used hotmail. But this is not the case with gtalk. People have switched over to gmail now. This integration of mail/chat/networking (orkut)/photo album (picassa) has created a much stronger entry barrier for a new IM which I believe would be difficult to break by FB or others atleast in the present form
correct me if i am wrong, but i thought yahoo mail also had the in-browser chat application.
yeah it does but it sucks … feels clunky and bloated
I guess someone forgot to mention MSN/Windows Live messenger, it has a higher share than Yahoo
I really like yahoo messanger a lot. Thank’s for info sharing. Nice posting ^_^