Google added a nifty feature to their arsenal of sorta-world-taking-over products the other day (while I was away) – chatback. This lets us webby-writing people add a special chat balloon to our pages which lets random strangers google-talk with us. So I added it to my sites and actually had a productive use for it today! But not all is bunnies and flowers…
Here’s what the balloon looks like:
Cool, eh? Except…
- The balloon itself is non-functional – it’s just an icon to click on
- You have to have Flash 8 installed
- The actual chat sessions are a little funky, and the guest can claim to be whoever they want
- (Worst of all) the chats are not saved like every other google talk session
I like it ok. I’ll leave it on (after all, I did make a MediaWiki extension and WordPress plugin/widget for it) but I’m not sure it’ll be much more than an occasional distraction. And I hope Frederic isn’t right about the potential for multitudes of unwanted conversations!
