The newest of all messengers is Google Talk. It is a messaging and voice program that does not have avatars, smilies annoying typing sounds, colorful or large chat text or anything I never liked about most messengers.

Google Talk provides you with a “friends” list based on your Gmail contacts or who you invite to use the program. If friends are online, you can message them or call them. If they are offline, you can email them through gmail.

Extra features are email notifications and message notifications, both showing up at the bottom right hand corner of your desktop. I really like having this program minimized so I can work on typing elsewhere while being able to read incoming messages. Another feature is the ability to change people’s names on your friends list. someone007@ gmail.com for example, can be changed simply to SOMEONE.

I think I first learnt about Google Talk the day it came out and was announced on ABS Forums by Milamber, but am not sure.

Since I never use my gmail account, trying to log onto this messenger, that required a gmail username and password was trouble. My account was locked (due to inactivity). Changing my password and trying again much later solved the issue.

I didn’t have contacts, but Khad, the maker of Fredryk Phantasy agreed to help me test it out.

Overall, I am pleased with how useful this program is. Reminds me of discovering ICQ back when instant messaging was simply that, without the bells and whistles.

At the moment, this is not a multi-messenger program. It does not activate webcams or group chat rooms. It does the essential work. You have an available or custom status. You can see when someone is typing. Sometimes there are timestamps, and you can log messages.

As many people know I have given up on instant messaging. Perhaps this program can regain my interest in the technology.

One of the newest messengers is Google Talk. It is a messaging and voice program that is simple and basic.  It does not have features like avatars, smilies, typing sounds, colourful or large chat text.

Google Talk allows you to chat with people based on your Gmail contacts or who people you have invited to use the program.  When your friends are online you can send them a message or call them, when they are offline you can email them with your Gmail account.

Some of the extra features that Google Talk offers are email notifications, message notifications, which show up at the bottom right hand corner of your desktop. You can minimize the program so you can type on other programs while at the same time being able to read new messages.  If you want to have your friends name come up instead of their email address you can assign nick names to them.

If you don’t use your Gmail account it is difficult to long into Google Talk. You account will be locked due to inactivity. But if you change your password and try again in a while it will fix the issue.

This program is a great program to use.  It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that other programs use.  It is a lot like ICQ when it first came out for instant messaging.

This program doesn’t allow multi-messaging and you can not use webcams or group chat rooms. But it does allow you to have custom status, allow you to see when someone is typing to you, and you can log messages.