Gtalkr's New Features

Colorado-based Gtalkr originally launched in November 2005 as a Flash based way to access Google Talk, Gmail and Yahoo maps from a website. I drew comparisons to Meebo as well as the Ajax home page crowd (my current list is here).

Gtalkr released a ton of new functionality today. First of all, Gtalkr is now extensible, so third parties can easily create and release their own widgets. If Gtalkr becomes more popular, we’ll start to see a lot of these.

The other new functionality includes:

  • YouTube integration: You can search for videos and play them right on the Gtalkr site
  • Flickr integration: search for any user or tag on Flickr and show a slideshow of pictures on the site
  • Additional Flickr stuff: Your gmail contacts now show a Flickr icon automatically. Just click on the flickr icon next to a name and see their pictures. This is a really clever use of the Flickr API, which allows applications to search for users via an email address.
  • System tray notifier: download a small client and get email and instant messenger notifications even when you are off Gtalkr
  • Whole page scroll: In the original release Gtalkr tried to fit all content into the viewable area (A flash issue); now the page is scrollable.

RSS feeds can also be integrated, and I really like the ability to simply drag the box to make it show more or fewer posts for a given feed. Any item in an RSS box can also be dragged into an IM window to send to a friend.

And this isn’t all. Gtalkr is also integrating AIM into the site within a couple of weeks, and has a number of other great features coming as well which they are asking not be blogged about yet.

Gtalkr is a two man team, created by brothers Wes and Dudley Carr.