On instant messengers and The Google

It’s been about a week now and there has been no noticeable change in the level or frequency of communication with those I am in contact with on a daily basis. In case you hadn’t noticed, I have not been on AIM or Yahoo! or ICQ for a bit, though I have still retained my fondness for the conjunction or.

“Why oh why have you done this,” you ask? Well, the answer is, simple. No really; simple. It makes my life simpler. I originally shifted from one instant messenger to another, retaining all previous accounts, either following the latest, greatest feature or because this or that client wouldn’t run on whatever particular flavor of operating system I was running at the time. With the advent of multi-protocol instant messenger clients like Pidgin (formerly GAIM) and Trillian, the later became less of an issue, but there were still some differences between feature sets that made having multiple accounts worth while. It’s occurred to me recently, though, that it’s no longer worth the hassle of remembering all the passwords and maintaining all the buddy lists.

So, I’ve picked one and, for now, I’m sticking to it. Since they are already poised to take over the world, I’ve gone with The Google. Many of you are already using Google Talk, and a large segment of you who aren’t have Gmail accounts, which gives you an automatic Google Talk account. There is, in fact, a built-in Google Talk client in the Gmail web interface. If you’d prefer to use a desktop client (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to do it on a desktop), here are some instructions for setting up Google Talk in iChat, Pidgin (if you’re still using GAIM, stop … really … slow poke), and Trillian. Those wishing to find me on Google Talk, can find me at [MARIO dot DELGADO at GMAIL dot COM], which also happens to be my main email address (see how handy that is).

All hail The Google!