Connect Google Talk to AIM, MSN, & Yahoo

[Jeff]

Google has announced plans to get Google Talk and AIM talking, but with a little elbow grease you can do that and more today.

Now that Google has opened up their Google Talk servers for federation with other Jabber servers, you can use Google Talk to connect to your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo or ICQ. Here's how, step-by-step with screenshots.

First, download and install the free Jabber client called Psi. It's a fine Jabber client, and you might want to keep it, but you won't need to once you've set everything up. The Psi wiki has a great step-by-step for connecting to Google Talk. Follow their instructions and you'll be able to see your Google Talk contacts.

Next, go to Service Discovery and browse the Jabber server ursine.ca and you'll see the transports available.

Click on a transport and Psi will gather data.

Right-click on a transport to register. Registration involves entering your username and password for the given IM network. Once you do, Psi will connect to that network and retrieve your contacts. You can also add new contacts.

Once I had "registered" each of my IM accounts, I had a lot (hundreds?) of system messages.

Basically it asked me to confirm that I wanted to add each of these contacts. Once I did, they showed up in my Psi contact list.

Now exit Psi and fire-up Google Talk. You'll have all your IM contacts right there on your Google Talk contact list.

Once you've done so, you can chat with your friends on AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN -- all using Google Talk. You can also add contacts directly within Google Talk. Just use the format [screenname]@[transport.dns.name]. For example, to add my MSN screen name you would enter jeff@msn.ursine.ca

What's the deal with ursine.ca? You can use any Jabber server you'd like -- you'll find a complete list here at Open Jabber Servers -- ursine.ca was just the server I used.

This process works, although in my experience, the MSN transport has not been reliable. One of my friends reported an weird "echo" effect. Everything she typed was returned back to her as if from me (I saw none of her messages). I've also sent IMs to MSN contacts, only to have them immediately appear "offline."

As with any of these kinds of hacks, your mileage may vary. But you've got to admit -- it is very cool to be able to use Google Talk as a universal IM client.

Resources

• Download Psi - Configure for Google Talk
• Download Google Talk
• Kudos to Aaron in the Google Talk Help Discussion group

[shifter]

That is very cool. It's too bad MSN is so buggy though. Not quite a Trillian killer yet, but it's a neat alternative.

[MiamiGuy]

As soon as I read this topic I almost wet myself. hah. That is very cool but as mentioned before it is sad to hear that MSN does not work so well with this (being the instant messaging client I use the most). If it did I would have definitely tried this out. Perhaps this will be fixed sometime in the future, or so I hope. Gotta love Google Talk!

[Jeff]

Knock on wood... but the MSN transport seems to be working fine this morning. And it all works through the corporate firewall, too!

[DrBroccoli]

WHOA That is so sweet. I love Google! I gotta try this a bit later, I got as far as the service directory, but the AIM transport was not listed, and that is what the majority of my friends use, and it what I and semi-forced to use.

[MiamiGuy]

Well I figured I'd give it a try. Unfortunately I am stuck on the step where I have to register the names for each of the transports I want to register to. It gets stuck in a lil box that pops up saying "Fetching registration form" and it doesn't get past that (It does this for all of the transports). I'll have to try later and see if it lets me register.

[Spike]

Well, I've merged my AIM buddy list into Google Talk, unfortunately if I open an IM window with someine (without saying a word), they appear offline, but we can still communicate. I'll try a different server sometime soon...I'm assuming that's the root of the problem.

[narayanan]

I tried this today, the MSN transport seems working fine (importing contacts as well as talking with other MSN buddies) :). Yahoo transport, just indicates its connecting but does'nt even import the buddy list. Has anyone tried through other Jabber networks

[MiamiGuy]

Well I tried again today in the morning and once again it gets stuck in a box saying "Fetching Registration Form" and doesn't do anything.

EDIT: Nevermind it is working. It just took a long time to connect to the server. Now all I have to do is wait for it to register. Woot.

Oh and I tried other jabber servers, but they don't seem to load the transports. Ursine.ca loaded it fast for me.

[MrEggsalad]

I got it to work (thanks to MiamiGuy for some help) and I liked it. There were connectivity issues and it screws the other person up if they try to send you a chat invite. Personally, I don't think this is ready for doing things like this. However, now we know that if Google went to make their own transports and things, to make it work with these protocals, it CAN happen.