With the recent BETA release from Google of their “Talk” application, many things spring to mind. First, no Macintosh compatible version ( ). So that basically means I won’t be testing it. However, I have seen some of its specs on the Google site and certainly have some opinions about this little program.

As much as Google touts this BETA program, it comes missing a lot of features that many have come to think as basic. No emoticons. Unlike Skype, Talk doesn’t have the same ability to make actual phone calls, it’s more like Apple’s iChat AV in that regard. You cannot initiate a File transfer or change the font with Talk, not yet anyway. It is, however, FREE!

But, to be honest, Talk is built to work with Gmail. If not quite there yet, it will be. Google makes its money from advertising revenue, and they make a lot of it. No advertising models are with this BETA release, but I’m sure some will come. I really hope we don’t start seeing text ads in our chatting windows ##- for those using Talk, that was an emoticon for a sad face.

But for now, there really isn’t any compelling reason to switch. Google Talk certainly doesn’t enjoy the clear advantages over competitors that Google Search or Gmail had at their introductions. Google has to do something to make its new service outstanding. After all, who wants to use a communications service that has no users?

Courtesy: Wired.com