Not being an instant messaging sort of guy, I wonder why Google would get into it now that it is so long established. Their last move into the specialties of others, Google Analytics, fell decidedly flat and is the most useless thing I have ever signed up for.
This is an interesting statement:
“We are breaking down some of the artificial barriers between e-mail and web browsing,” said Salar Kamangar, a Google vice-president. “We observed by talking with our users that there is no reason to think of IM [instant messaging] as different from an e-mail message.”
It is a good point that email and IM are the same thing with a slightly different appearance to the user giving a false sense of cool. But that is no different than any fashion or bauble. But why invest in those?