Google Talk Adds a Chatback Widget

I think this a great addition to google arsenal. This widget will be great especially for etailer sites that already use google checkout since they would be targeting the same consumers. I could see this doing what skype should have done for ebay.

Meebo has this already.

on related news… Google Talk takes down their chatback widget from their investor relations site

While it may not have all the features of services such as LiveAgent, one thing it does have is a great price… FREE. Since Google Talk can already log all your chats you also can search through your chats if you use it for customer service. Pretty handy for small ecommerce operations.

I like the idea. I`ll give it a try..

This is a direct competitor to all of the click to chat / live help services out there. Yet another industry that Google is going to gobble up and create a monopoly - destroying most of the existing businesses in the process.

How many more industries do we need to see them get into before we make an issue out of their monopolistic nature?

This reminds me of the ICQ widget from many years ago that let you place your ICQ status on your website. It was popular then, and I can see this really being popular for teenagers with blogs who want to meet their readers.

This is also a free live support tool for businesses, allowing your customers to contact you directly. It will increase google account signups if this tool gets into widespread use.

I see myself using this conditionally, where I may post an article, and at the bottom add a footer which invites people to discuss the topic with me further.

This ought to be fun… I added this to the download site of the novel I released under a Creative Commons license. Score one for the new media!

@Joel - do you understand the term monopoly? A monopoly suggests that the consumer has no other choices, and that Google is anti-competitive. I fail to understand how a gtalk widget is monopolistic in nature (especially with gtalk’s market share). By their very nature, widgets are competitive because the consumer has choice, and they can be deployed anywhere.

Today is not a good day for this launch.

http://yooflix.com/SearchVideo.aspx

Jaxtr provides not only voice calling through our widgets/buttons, but also text messaging, so people have more of a choice. Also, there is never a “ringing VoIP” line with jaxtr. First, it’s your regular phone that rings (and you can choose at any point in time where to route calls to your home, work or mobile phone). Second, our PrivacyShield ensures that your phone rings only for people you have approved, so non-approved callers get routed to a digital voicemail box (kind of like Gmail for voicemails) and you can check the voice messages there at your leisure. And, if the call is from your mom, by all means, approve her, so your phone rings when she calls! Click through on my name above to see how this works . . .

Cant find a way to make it work with Google Apps for Your Domain Talk.

This is a free live support tool for businesses, allowing your customers to contact you directly. It will increase google account signups if this tool gets into widespread use.

Yes, this is a devastating blow to vendors such as LivePerson (NASDAQ: LPSN). It was just a matter of time before it happened.
The JAXTR post (@10) is interesting but we’ll just have to see how viable that business becomes. Now GOOG will move to offer the exact same voice functionality as described by JAXTR through their GrandCentral acquisition but also Live Website Chat. CRUSHING BLOW!!!

@Erick - Ah, you should have put a real chatback widget up there - and don’t worry, I’m sure your reads will want to talk to you

By the way, have you ever heard of penis enlargement cream?

We have been using Plugoo quite successfully to run small scale chat support with a GTalk account, so it’s great that Google now offers this. Although I must say that it does not look as inviting to chat with as the plugoo widget.

all cream once applied works as penis enlargement cream.

Interesting blog. With the advent of the new consumer, Gen X and Gen Y, I wonder how it will impact the finanical transactions. I recently read an article on the mortgage side of the new consumers by Cary Burch CEO of LSSI. Interesting stats.

http://www.mortgage-technology.....70419.html

@Ryan Yes, I do understand what a monopoly is and what monopolistic behavior is.

Just look above, in the 17 posts above, 5 of them mention that it will be used by them/others as a support replacement. That is roughly 29% of these posts. That should be some indicator showing what is about to happen to this industry.

Google is such a large brand name and most people are so pigeonholed in their products that there is little barrier to entry for people to try it out. Google offering it for free is what will get them market share. Why would you pay for something if you can get it for free?

Before long, businesses in the click to chat industry are going to go out of business (get deadpooled). Once that starts happening, then you as a consumer start to not have other choices. The fact that they are offering it for free is what makes this anti-competitive.

Gtalk’s current market share isn’t much, I agree. Give it 6 months and I guarantee with this offering their market share will double in 6 months.

I don’t think you’ll see many businesses use this. Lets be honest here, Google is the Kia of the internet. Cheap and bare bones, good deals but you won’t be caught dead in one. What does it say about your business if you can’t afford to have your own chat solution. This is no different then telling people: “Hey everyone IM me at Arrington on AIM or Techcrunch on YM or penisenlargement@msn.com on MSN or FeedbackTC on GTalk.

lets give credit to meebo for having this like ages ago !!!

It does not save your chats with ‘guests’ so there is no record of your conversation.

It does not show your status for Google Apps for your domain accounts, but it seems to allow you to sign up with a Google Apps account for your domain, provided you create a Google Account ‘username’ (email doesn’t suffice) but even then it doesn’t show your status, so I choose to use an existing email Gmail account.

With all that said, I think this is a great feature for my business’s website (contrary to what #20 said).

This is nothing new. As mentioned above, this already available from other IM vendors.

I want to add a mark to the wall. Microsoft (surprise!) had this feature before Google.

http://messengersays.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!5B410F7FD930829E!30835.entry

Hey, if I start a company that automates irrelevant and spammy blog comments like the mortgage guy’s above, will TC write about me?

meebo.com does this already.

This does not make sense for people over 30. Why do I want to be pinged by the great unknown? This is great for tech support or a business scenario.

Great idea on paper, but not implemented in a very user-friendly way. When a chat request comes in from the web click, you get a very ugly url in your Google Talk client that you have to click on to open a web page to do the actual chatting. It can’t be done in the gTalk application, even if installed. Also, the badge does not validate XHTML Strict or Transitional.

I’ve been waiting for Google to do this and they finally did. Great news.

I still love Meebo, so I’ll be using them both.

I think it’s a pretty novel concept, my company, http://hab.la has been working on a similar concept for the past year for letting you chat with visitors to your website using Jabber — it has the advantage of letting you chat with your visitors directly from

It might say about your business…”Hey, I sick of having to pass along insane prices to my customers. For once I would like to be able to save them a dime without taking it in the shorts.”

Companies routinely rip off each other with over the top pricing schemes, because they know that there will be an end user (most likely many end users) that won’t notice the higher prices. Who here is the unfair advantage taker?

This won’t work for businesses that need more than one user chatting at a time.

Lo intentaremos..

Nothing wrong if someone is not getting Spammed !
If one is getting spammed, one option is to be offline from Anonymus chat !

-Raxit

Hi,

I think i found potential Heavy Misuse,
Just will do PoC after going home,

Will disclose (damn easy) if success !

-Raxit

Hmmm…

if i put chatback widget on my page/blog, anyone can see the “widget code” and can copy paste to wherever they want !!!

if you have put “Chatback” widget, you may not aware, anyone can put “Your Chat Back Widget (Talk to you) even on the page you MAY NOT WANT” !!!

PoC here !!!
http://smartgunda.com/chatback.html
http://smartgunda.com/chatbackmore.html

Cheers,
Raxit

contact google, let’s see what they reply ?
this may be heavy potential misuse !

-Raxit

“Do you really want random people on the Web IMing you? Google thinks so.” => I love this quote

btw, Duncan Rocks!

Mark,

Good article on X and Y from Cary Burch CEO of LSSI. here is another interesting blog on the European component with a post of that information.

http://www.finextra.com/commun.....px?id=1011