Google Talk

[Luke Schierer]

My own thoughts on google talk have taken a decided turn over the period
of time it has existed.  My first thought was that it would be good for
google talk users to realize that google talk is based on a standard.  I
still meet a good many google talk users who do not realize that they
can talk to users on other servers.

But over the months, having regular support requests on google talk, I
am forced to conclude that setting up a working google talk account is
harder than it should be.  As someone else said in this thread, even
those who find & attempt to follow the directions sometimes fail.  For
that reason I think we should do something more than we have previously.

My preference would be to not actually have a google talk protocol, but
instead to have a more complex account creation dialog.  This dialog
would be more in lines with a "wizard."  While no account creation
dialog will ever be perfect, there would be the opportunity here to walk
users through setting up their account, hopefully avoiding some of the
current pit-falls.

At the same time, by ending them up on an XMPP account, the dialog could
still help try to make it clear that a google talk account is fully
capable of talking to me using my @pidgin.im xmpp account.

creating such a dialog would be significantly more work though, and I
think having a separate google talk protocol is better than the status
quo.

luke