I noticed tonight that Gmail now has Google Talk integration in a neat way! Users now have the option to save their Chats on Gmail (see screen captures above and to the left).
This is pretty interesting. Sure, many chat clients allow you to log your conversations, and then you can download a desktop search client that might understand how to search and display the files on your hard drive. But now, all of your chats are right there, easily accessible and searchable, through the unified Gmail interface. I dig it.
At the same time, I think it really changes the way I think of the chat medium. Traditionally, I've 'felt' IM chat to be more like phone chat than email. Email seems so permanent. Logged, stored on a server (maybe multiple servers) by the sender and recipient. Permanently archived. Sure, people can and do log IM chats (and phone conversations), but there still seemed to be less permanence and/or exposure, especially outside of a corporate environment.
Now, my chats will show up every time I search my email. That's a scary thought. Cool and potentially novel, but scary. I'm definitely glad Google decided to make it opt-in and disabled by default, at least for now.
Another scary thought will be the # of lines of chat I accumulate over time. Hehe.
1 comment:
Dude, you get a lot of spam!
I don't really like the idea of a third-party (even the altruistic Google) having logs of my IMs. Especially with the way the .gov likes to demand access to anything and everything there is to know about us.
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