IM Roadmap

This article is a few months old, predating the founding of this blog, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyhow.  It sheds some light on Google’s thinking in how it approaches the IM space with it’s Google Talk product.  In particular, it seems clear that Google acknowledgesentering the space as the challenger, without the power of a millions-strong decade old user base (like AOL, Yahoo, and MSN).  Like in other spaces (webmail, for example), Google intends to reinvent rather than reproduce existing offerings.  First, they embrace XMPP, the closest thing the most open, developer-friendly IM protocol.  Second, they allow client and network interoperability on their network from the outset.   Third, they do all this without any immediately visible revenue model - unlike the incumbent public IM networks, there are no ads in the Google Talk client.  I think it is telling that they describe the current state of IM as similar to the state of email prior to SMTP interoperability.  This viewpoint has been stated by IM users and even some vendors, for years, but it is refreshing to hear it from such a (potentially) disruptive force like Google.  I also enjoy hearing the Google Talk Product Manager, Mike Jazayeri, refer to Yahoo’s “SPIM defense” as “a smokescreen”.  It will be interesting to see if Google is able to have the destabilizing impact on IM that is had on search and webmail.  Any reader opinions on this?