Google Makes Sites Chatty
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 26, 2008 | Share This
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Google Talk has just introduced “chatback,” a bit of code that Google Talk users can add to their blogs, web pages, etc., to let anyone - with or without a Google account - talk with them. It’s like comments, but private and more immediate, and because it works wherever HTML works, it could potentially infiltrate Facebook and other social networks, too.
I’m not sure this feature is actually useful, and in fact I think this has potential to be a little creepy, because not only do chat initiators not have to have a Google account, they don’t need to have an email address, either, so it opens up the floodgates for Internet trolls, in real time. And the chatback automatically updates to show site visitors when your Google Talk status is set as available. So if you use Google Talk frequently and want to give real friends the green light to message you, but don’t want to talk with strangers who are looking at your site just then, it seems like you’re out of luck. (Though ignoring them anyway is always an option.)
Google Talk’s chatback might come in handy for breaking news blogs that rely on user tips, especially anonymous ones; but beyond that, does anyone really need this? Probably not.
Topics: Blogging, Google, Social Media |
A link to the chatback service would be good.
Wow..its good know more about new improvements that google is doing!
But you said it right, in some ways it will be useful, however most website owners do not use google as their personal emails…
Great post!
I would agree…
This is targeted for several individuals only…just knowing who would what to talk to strangers like what you’ve said earlier..
But then, for some it may be a great help!
Adam - here you go:
http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-talk-chatback.html