Chapter 22. Instant Messaging with Google Talk and Gmail Chat

America Online has its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) service. Microsoft has its MSN Messenger service. Yahoo! has Yahoo! Messenger. It should come as no surprise, then, that Google is now offering an instant messaging service called Google Talk.

What is surprising is that you can access Google Talk from the standalone Google Talk client (similar to what's offered with both AIM and MSN Messenger) or from the Gmail web page. That's right, you can instant message your friends from Google's web-based email service. Cool.