Yesterday Google announced that Gmail users can start both audio and video conversations from within the web-based mail interface. Naturally that got a lot of people excited because you don't need to download any third-party program to get it running. You do, however, have to install a plugin on your computer though.

The long-awaited Google Talk for iPhone is finally available, and it's not in the form of an iPhone application. Instead, it's simply a browser app which makes us wonder why it took Google over a year to make something for the iPhone.

Both you and I have been complaining for quite awhile that Google needs to provide an updated desktop version of the Google Talk instant messenger, and it looks like they are listening after all. Over the weekend they released a new version called Google Talk, Labs Edition that is currently in testing. Sounds great, right?

I've been complaining for quite awhile that Google Talk hasn't been updated in ages (over a year), but the online version of the messaging clients have been receiving features quite regularly.  Google recently added AIM support to Gmail Chat, group chatting is possible in both the Flash client and Gmail Chat, and the smilies available in both online messenger clients are way better than what Google Talk has.

Google has just introduced a new way to help site owners communicate more with their visitors.  It's called Google Talk Chatback and it's available to any website where you can add HTML content. Inserting the Chatback "badge" will allow visitors to chat with you which means you'll be having an instant message session with your readers, right from the browser. Cool, huh?

At last, Google has released something that will benefit Google Talk  users too! Just yesterday they announced that new translation bots have been added to Google Talk.  That means that you can essentially "chat" with the bot, and whatever you say to them, they'll translate it back.  It works by adding a bot as one of your friends.  So for example, I added the Chinese speaking bot to my friend list (, and then when I said "Hello," it responded with "Hello" in Chinese.  When I said "How are you?" it responded with the same, just translated in Chinese, nifty, huh?

Hey Google, remember that Google Talk application you have? Yeah, the one that keeps getting ignored? You launched it back in 2005 and added a features in 2006 (offline messaging and voice mailing), but since then it seems you've just forgotten about it. Now it looks like you're focusing all of your efforts on Gmail Chat and the flash based Google Talk gadget for personalized homepages.

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I absolutely love Google Talk because of its simplicity, and the fact that I've got all of my friends using it is a huge plus. There is only one thing that I really dislike with the instant messenger, and it's that I can't change my status to away.

If you visit Google today, you'll notice the usual logo has been replaced with the one you see pictured to the right.  It's Google's 9th Birthday, and they're celebrating! While there are actually several dates that could be considered Google's birthday, clearly they acknowledge today, September 27th as their official birthday, the day that they became incorporated and their name was officially Google inc.