The user numbers coming out on Google Talk are staggeringly terrible. Comscore usage numbers show that nearly a year after launch Google is a distant, distant 4th after MSN, Yahoo and AIM. They hold a pitiful 1% of total instant messaging market share, with 3.4 million unique users in May 2006. See the Comscore chart below for more details (I wonder where Skype IM falls in those stats). Note that Comscore does not include Google Talk usage within Gmail itself (where it is embedded), but even factoring that in, the numbers are just awful.
The NYT picked up on this as well, noting that “Google Talk chat software had only 44,000 users in June”. Om Malik notes that there have been only about a million total downloads of the client.
Where does Google go from here? I suggest they roll some heads and figure out a real product strategy.
I dont think these results are counting the built in chat on Gmail’s site. That’s what I use, I never. Ever. Will download Gchat, but I use it all the time.
Oh. Missed that part in the article…
Likewise .. I do 95% of my chatting using the integrated chat in gmail
Users are getting used to interoperability. As you’ve reported previously, Meebo and the like offer that. The interoperability deal between MSN and Yahoo was basically about putting the squeeze on AOL and locking out Google.
Poor old ICQ, who were the first to popularise the whole medium as I recall, are completely out of the picture, it seems.
Is Google’s strategy really to provide a downloadable IM client? I know they have one, but is that their strategy? Most people I know use the chat feature embedded in Gmail, and with the acquisition of GTalkr, one has to wonder if their strategy is, in fact, to provide a robust IM client that runs in the browser. That would be my bet.
I don’t believe those numbers anyway. Yahoo more than twice the size of AIM? I was under the impression AIM had about 50% of the market and Yahoo/MSN grabbed the rest (discounting smaller players like GTalk). How are the figures calculated, if I log on via Meebo or iChat am I counted? There are a *lot* of users that don’t use the official client for each of the networks.
I think Jon is spot on. I have friends on all the networks; very few of them use or are fond of the (perceived to be bloated and ad-heavy) AIM client. I personally use both Trillian and the chat client built into Gmail, and a great many of my (admittedly largely geek / Bay Area) friends use Trillian or other IM aggregator programs. [Disclaimer: I am employed by Google, but I don't work on anything related to the chat stuff]
There’s a good strategy with Gtalk in terms of offering an open standard for other clients to use. They have extended the jabber protocols to support VOIP and have contributed open source libraries. This will allow for example third party clients to use voip over the Gtalk network without going through some sort partnership. Long term this seems like a good bet as it will pick up developpers.
It may be a question of making concerted push to gain a critical mass of users, or perhaps simply waiting for an ecosystem to slowly develop around their network.
Actually, I never use GTalk in GMail. I only use the desktop version. Personally, the desktop version is more usable. I also tried using both at the same time and if you do that then strange things happen — you get your chats in GTalk in GMail but not on desktop GTalk.
I do agree — very few of my friends use GTalk. Almost everyone I know uses Yahoo! IM and of course, because of that, I use Yahoo! IM as well.
Perhaps, Google should think of doing something like Meebo, Goowy, etc. and consolidating the IM tools. I think that would be a better strategy than going at it alone.
Interoperability is a must. Any company that pushes the industry in that direction, does the right thing.
Michael, is there a point to all the Google-trashing? This is far from the first time you’ve indulged in it. Perhaps you are just being hip by going against some kind of imaginary “common wisdom.” They’re popular, so you bash them out of some kind of need to root for the underdog. Am I wrong? Whence springs your bias?
In any case, I use Miranda and chat with friends over Yahoo, MSN, and Google Talk. When I initiate a conversation and have a choice of providers for a given contact, I use Google Talk because I can search the conversation in Gmail later, something that comes in handy almost every day.
That 44,000 doesn’t count non-Google Talk users of the Jabber network. Because Google went with the open XMPP IM standard, there are many more than 44,000 users for GTalk users to IM with. Google directly benefits from the network effect of using an open standard, and it seems like only a matter of time before the rest of the IM services have to get on the XMPP ship.
Ron – I can see your frustration and seriousness in morally questioning Google trashing…but wait it is okay to trash Microsoft but not Google??
I was just wondering how accurate the MSN numbers are when the client comes installed on every Windows PC and once launched has a habbit of sticking around (and updating itself during Windows updates) even if the user of computer only used the client once years ago to see what it did.
I’ve seen lots of home (and many business PC’s) running the MSN client in the background without the users even knowing what (or why) it is there.
Gmail and Gchat is for geeks and not for MSNers and other IMer chatters.
Does ANYONE really use Gtalk? I have a bunch of friends who work at Google and they are all using AIM. I think it is interesting how defensive everyone gets when someone questions Google. They have some great products and some, not so great products…
I, too, use the Gtalk embedded within Gmail a majority of the time. Cutting this out of the stats definitely is causing some skewing of the numbers, as all the friends I know also chat through Gmail – even the ones who use non-Gmail services as their primary IM.
The market was pretty much bursting when Google Talk arrived after all. I use the service both within Gmail (A LOT) and using Adium. The saving of chats online and being able to quickly IM someone instead of emailing using the “Reply by Chat” feature is brilliant.
Check the market share for Gmail vs Hotmail vs Yahoo Mail. You’ll see something similar, but I don’t think we’d argue over which product is superior.
Hate to say, “I told you so”, but…
http://www.mart...yone-listening/
The thing is – I love that there’s nobody on it. I’ve got accounts on just about every system, but my close friends / business associates and I have agreed to use google chat, even, at times, their very lackluster client. A small user base means that all the majority of people I met in high school and college will never find and annoy the heck out of me. Seriously.
I think it’s ironic that others above talk about y!/msn as a bright sign of interoperability, while gtalk is the only one in the field built off of jabber, the only real open standard for distributed chat messaging. It interoperates with anything that’ll speak the same protocol, including the open source jabber server I set up for internal messaging at my medium-sized company.
Ha. NOBODY uses iCQ anymore?
Ok. I don’t use it too. But it was huge in the past. Where is iCQ ?
Pronob, no, as a matter of fact, Microsoft-trashing is not okay either, at least when it’s just for the sake of trashing, as this appears to be.
Michael is willing to trash GTalk based on their (possibly inaccurate) adoption numbers, when in fact he has no idea what Google’s endgame for GTalk is or what they regard as success. Obviously this is the only external metric available to Michael, since unlike all the Web2.0 startups, Google doesn’t feel obliged to brown nose Michael and ask him to bless all their offerings, in the hopes that they’ll mention him on TechCrunch.
Hmm… perhaps Michael’s motive for trashing Google is becoming apparent?
Where’s the money in this market? Usage statistics can be distracting.
* the digital native kids – who are probably the biggest users but want it all free, will ignore ads. Dad’s not going to support them for long.
* the geeks – who also want it free, and will block and ignore ads. They’ll find some hacktastic way to communicate that it takes a techie brain to understand. Good for them.
Nope, the money isn’t there. It’s the mainstream. But they won’t be doing this until there is a real, universal network. And they’ll pay if it’s cheaper than their phone company. The company that charges reasonable rates and is able to guarantee service levels will win.
I think a little Google Trashing is in order. It’s just part of the game when you’re as successful as they are.
They have mind-boggling capital and intellectual recources and have certainly helped build the perception they’re going to shake things up. Not just a little bit of swagger going on at the ol’ Googleplex I would imagine.
Yet..beyond search, ads, and maybe maps (although that’s certainly impressive enough) what have they really pulled off that is impressive for the talent and cash they could throw at something? People point to Gmail, but if having a gmail account didn’t have that geek chic appeal…big deal.
Mike is right..time for Google to actually kick some ass and make teams accountable for producing something that is truly innovative and stop throwing up Google-branded, often lamer, versions of old ideas.
Me thinks the gobs of high-margin revenue they’re raking in with ads is covering up a very chaotic and inefficient organization that needs some leadership.
Funny, I half expected it it to be 53,651.
Seriously, why are you all surprised and skeptical that it’s so low? You know what Google should do? Forget about IM. It’s already too fragmented and nobody wants a new player. They’re wasting their time.
What were YahooIM’s equivalent usage numbers a year after their launch? (Yahoo Pager launched in March 1998.)
I bet they weren’t that impressive. This is a market with entrenched competition that enjoys the benefits of customer and network lock-in. Yahoo slogged their way into comeptition over 8 years of dogged effort… but none of the current market leaders (A/Y/M) support truly open interoperability.
Expecting a big bang in usage just because it’s Google or even has a good product is unrealistic. The market is still what it is. Check back in 5 years to see if it’s a success or not.
I didn’t know Google had an IM client. It makes me wonder if it’s any good.
I like most of their other stuff – it’s all at least minimally competent – how bad would their IM client have to be to achieve such a low adoption rate? I wonder if it’s possible to achieve this low an adoption rate if one actually tried to do it. I mean, 80% of their users would have to be the engineers that built it, TechChrunch users, and third-party vendors.
That said, I guess it’s possible that at least one of the higher-ups just said, “No IM right now – it’s not important to us at all, just lay low, sit back, relax, you’ll catch some heat, but don’t shake things up – I’ll make sure you get rewarded.” Happens all the time – it’s just difficult to believe that Google is this incompetent at anything. Sometimes things are always what they seem at first glance.
Has Google succeeded in anything other than Search?
GMail is overrated, Orkit and Picasa are not getting much traction, same goes for Google Personalization, Calendar, News, Froogle, etc. Yet, everyone is so enamored with Google thinking they can dominate the world with any Google product launch…
Google’s product marketing machine is an amateur operation. There is obviously no coherent product strategy. Can anyone honestly say that Google will or will/not invest in updates to Google Talk or Maps or Earth or Base or any number of other products?
It is actually quite funny and ironic that for all the engineering brilliance, google is still amateurish at business strategy.
Market perception vs. Market reality — the perception (by the general market and specifically those “investors” in the tech market) is that Google is the 800 lb. Gorilla of the Internet Age. The truth is, they only lead in one category — Search — and they are a follower in all other categories. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact – perception IS reality.
IM is just another category they are behind the pack — The Googleverse is dominated by Google Search (and Adwords) — the question is, with their cash reserves how long can they wait to creep of the category list?
Other Categories Google does not lead — Maps, Email, Shopping, News, Finance, (do I need to go on….)
Microsoft proved with Passpor that having a leading Inernet destination (and a monopoly) is not enough to build succesful market share, and that throwing a service out there and see if the dogs eat it is not by itself a good strategy – I mean it’s not a strategy at all.
Google may also be proving that in addition to that, building a decent service doesn’t necesarily add to the results. I agree with Gordon Mohr that we’re measuring products with a big difference in the time they’ve been around, but don’t forget that as Google may grow on this market, so may the other already well-established players.
What this also defines are the barriers to entry on many of the markets Google is entering. If all-mighty Google can only scrap a tiny piece (email, maps, base, im and so on), imagine what it’d take a startup to enter and succeed on any of these markets. Yet, we’ve seen the YouTubes, the Diggs, the Skypes and the Technoratis make it thorugh some markets that might have been dominated by the big players. So yeah, interesting things are happening, and Google is still not much than a search box and an ad machine – and a darn good one at those two!
Google Talk is best of the IMs so far with it’s integrated mail chat whether anyone agree or not:-)
I think on that list we would actually be above Gtalk!
I wonder how many users AIM or MSN has 1 year after launch? It doens’t seem valid to trash a product because it only has 1 year out there compared to the veterans thathave been around for 6+ years.
How many users does Google Maps have compared to mapquest? And maps can get users much more easily because there is not network effect needed.
Your post seems way off base in it’s scathing tone.
Also, for those that don’t know, AIM is very popular in the US, with Yahoo slightly behind. But outside the US you won’t find more than 10 people on AIM. Despite the Valley centric view of the web, most of the world’s internet users are not in the US.
if GTalk in Gmail were to have IM interoperability, man oh man…
i think the reason why a lot of people are using MSN/YM is because a lot of their friends are on MSN/YM. if there’s a way to connect to these friends w/o using MSN/YM, then they wouldn’t have that many users (IMHO).
I continue to use Gtalk because it’s integrated with Gmail and my personalized search as well as available on my Blackberry. When I’m out and about, any search or conversation I have on my Blackberry is stored along with anything I do on the desktop, all searchable when I inevitably return to the office. Not to say others don’t have some or all of the same functionality, but it works for me.
I’ve got a big problem with these figures Mike: the don’t include Skype, and most people I know these days use Skype for IM.
Duncan, I do too, but its what we have from Comscore.
Mike, can you post a link to the Comscore data or is it from a private report?
The data you’re showing is global and NYT is showing US only.
How many more times shall we see this ‘open system’ vs. ‘closed system’ dilemma to understand, that:
1. Closed system has a threshold and critical mass, but pays off by customer loalty FOR SOME TIME (only)! In the end – customers leave it for the sake of OPEN system. Need examples? Apple or Sun hardware + Unix vs. PC-Microsoft , AOL vs. the Internet … etc. etc. etc.
2. In the end – the users DO migrate. They migrate to the most usable product meeting their needs in a real way.
It’s some kind of a basic principle…
Who the heck is comscore? And how do they get these figures?
Someone above posted where is ICQ? I used that quite a lot back in the late 60’s, AIM in College (in the US), then MSN and Skype now where I work in China (no one uses AIM here).
Now, China… Where is QQ (tencent) in the stats?!?!?! Add that, and it will be a big contender to MSN!
I like google talk, but they dont have the client for osx. I hate the fact that every other chat platform is crowded with features only a teenager needs. Google Talk kept it simple and for that I thank them. But even when I do have my gmail open, I notice no one from my contacts is every online with it.
a) Obviously the methodology is flawed
b) Google is trying to disrupt the IM marketplace by doing things differently (GMail GTalk client, Interop via Jabber etc). This is probably a good strategy – not something you roll heads for.
c) You are bashing Google for going from nowhere to number 4 in the marketplace, while AIM has dropped from its dominiate position a year or two ago to be only third? Umm… I think perhaps they are the ones that need a product strategy.
More at http://blog.voi...rs-during-june/
The best feature of GoogleTalk is the gmail integration. How come Gmail is still invite only? Only techies use it and they’re already married to AIM. Open Gmail to the world and market that, and Google talk will grow.
People are just not used to having all their apps in one place. Everyone is used to having a browser and a seperate IM client – Google is ahead of themselves on this one and what they should do is open up Google Talk to other client’s screenames. I would totally use Google Talk if it allowed me to use my main AIM screename.
Yes, gmail integration is the best. No fancy icons or silly flash pictures, just software that works
a few points:
MSN, AIM and Yahoo have had quite a lead time over Gtalk.
Users of a particular flavor of IM have a social network already built. Porting it (the network of contacts) over to a new IM client, even one which has significant technical advantages such as Gtalk, takes time.
I have friends who refuse to get on Gtalk, so I run YIM and MSN as legacy chat apps to talk to them.
The adoption rate of Gtalk has nothing to do with the technical or business model aspects, rather it’s a function of the inertia of social groups and the time it takes to move them all onto a new platform.
I’m surprised at your reaction… you are very well aware how recent google talk has been out, why would you compare it to msn, yahoo, aim?
I have never downloaded the client myself but use the embedded chat on gmail all the time. I like how archived conversations show up in search query. I agree with Nick (#44), they are doing things differently.
I could be wrong here, but I perceive from your earlier posts that you do not appreciate google’s products. TechCrunch is considered a respectable blog, why ruin the reputation through biased rants? just a personal thought..
While these numbers are VERY poor it fits with the Google strategy of ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’
Will be interesting to watch over the next few months….will they focus or cast it adrift????