Yahoo and Microsoft Interoperability Imminent

Fascinating.
Many ramifications both good and bad I guess.

I await "Wednesday" (which means *I* have to wait till Thursday!) AGOG.

Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo are all running scared in the face of Google. Yes, Google Talk is new, but they are probably the only company capable of truly threatening the Big Three in terms of IM market share.

WIth Microsoft and Yahoo linking their IM networks, together they command about 44% of the market (Radicatti Group). This strengthens their position and helps them retain market share.

This deal is a good thing for consumers. No, you won't get all the same bells and whistles between the two instant messengers; to play pool you'll need Yahoo! Messenger on both ends. But it does mark a positive move. If they are able to add AIM interoperability to the mix, Google Talk becomes marginalized.

I feel that BBB overrates GoogleTalk hugely.

Most articles seem to agree it's in order to tackle AIM, in front of them, not any little new guy somewhere on a distant horizon.

Though I treat reports that AIM IS #1 with some caution - that is only for the U.S. market - I doubt if it's #1 worldwide.

Anyway, gosh, I hope YM might increase the 300-buddy limit, if we are now going to include MSN !?

Although Google may be a power in the future -- I'm not sure it was because of Google Talk that prompted the Yahoo/MSN partnership. Given AIM's overwhelming popularity (particularly with younger people) in the US as well as ICQ's popularity in other area's of the world, they seem to be the clear targets.

Google Talk's promise will hopefully be realized in the future -- particularly if they can offer the upper tier features in an open source, yet interoperable fashion, like Voice. Right now, I would have to agree that in it's current format, Google is the "stone-age of instant messaging", as one reviewer put it.

My biggest gripe with Google Talk is that it's open-source ... in a kind of closed-source way. I can almost overlook the having to have a Gmail account requirement, even though it smells a lot like MSN, but to not even be able to add my other Jabber buddies to it seems to be just as proprietary and locked-in as any other messengers. When I can move my other Jabber contacts to Google Talk without making them get Gmail accounts to do so -- then we'll have a truly open-source model of a messenger.

If you don't think Google Talk matters, you're wrong. You might be interested in checking out the prediction market experiment being run by Yahoo and O'Reilly. It uses the same "intelligence of crowds" theory popularized by James Surowieki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds.

Prediction markets work similarly to stock markets, but work on trends. The goal is to predict the future value of a "thing" -- an idea, a product, a service -- whatever.

When you look at the current chart for the IM market, you'll see that Google Talk is currently doing better than all of the other IM programs.

Of course, predictive markets are just that -- predictive. They are not absolute, and anything can happen. But it is a measure of how seriously people are taking Google Talk and you can bet that AOL, MSN and Yahoo are all concerned about what Google will do.