There were two instant messaging releases shipped yesterday from two of the major online players.

1. Google Talk Beta: Google has finally shipped an instant messaging application as we all expected. You can get the scoop from Joe Beda's post Welcome To Google Talk. It seems Joe is one of the folks at Google who helped ship this. From his post we learn they provide

   • Instant messaging server based on the XMPP/Jabber protocol.  This is an IETF approved protocol.  Check out www.xmpp.org for more info.
   • Out of the box support for many third party clients.  Choose iChat, Gaim, Trillian or a host of others.  We support them from day one.
   • Our own client available for download from talk.google.com.  We've concentrated on a simple to use and clean interface.  We've tried to strip IM down to its essence.
   • Support for voice calls between clients that just work.  We've worked hard to support all sorts of network topologies.  We are also using first class industry leading audio codecs.
   • A commitment to openness moving forward.  Choose your platform (Window, Mac, Linux, etc), choose your client (ours or others) and choose your service provider (we are commited to federation).  We want to make IM as open as the web or email.

2. MSN Messenger 7.5: MSN shipped to its instant messaging client yesterday. You can get the scoop in Leah Pearlman's post MSN Messenger 7.5 - I can't believe It's Not Beta. From her post we learn that some of the new features are

   • Dynamic Backgrounds: Backgrounds that subtly animate in cool ways.

   • Voice Clip: Press and hold the Voice Clip button (or F2) and record up to 15 seconds of your voice or anything. When you release, it goes to your buddies just like an IM, and they can hear it instantly upon receipt.
   • Freaking Awesome Audio Quality Improvements: Yes, that’s the technical name. Our new audio technology makes free Voice (Voip) calls super-clear. Mostly thanks to much improved echo-cancellation. It’s now just like using a phone except: "Look ma! No hands!"
   • Patching: Due to the plethora of features in the Messenger client the download size has grown. In the future, instead of having to download the entire client each time an particular release is updated, we can download a small patch, on the order of 100K on to the user’s machine instead.

Google's entrance into the instant messaging landscape is interesting although unsurprising. As usual Google has entered the space with a disruptive move but instead of the move being the feature set of its IM client it is by not treating their IM network as a walled garden as AOL, MSN and Yahoo! have done. People aren't restricted to the Google Talk client and anyone can write a client application to connect people within their network. I'm not sure this is a smart move but it definitely is a disruptive one.