Googlified

Only a few days after introducing the invisible mode in Gmail Chat, the Google Talk team added another great feature into the application - Chatback Badge. According to Google, “[a] Google Talk chatback badge will let visitors to your web page chat with you. They’ll be able to chat with you whenever you’re signed in to Google Talk.” Google’s description is not exactly true, but good enough. You will have to approve the chat request before the person can chat with you.

The process goes like: visitor click on the link to chat with you, a Google Talk Gadget opens for the person -> Google Talk will notify you and ask whether you would like to join the chat, providing a link to Google Talk Gadget, which will open in the browser.

The guest can remain in complete anonymous. Yes, this is the Internet, but I would still want to know who I am talking to, even if the person is lying. (ZOMG, pedobear is talking to me!) So guess what? I would like the guests to enter their names first, sort of like GrandCentral, and I hope that they would allow chatting inside the IM client, without using the Google Talk Gadget.

Luka from Zorgloob said that these chats are off the record, meaning that they aren’t stored in Gmail even if you have the option enabled. Also, he noticed that “chat are not merged if you have more than one person contacting you. It is not chat rooms.”

Having someone (an emotionless cluster of computers controlled by a team of Googlers) telling me that I am invisible every morning is just (effing) great.

[via the Google Blogoscoped forum]