Solo Technology

The Google Talk folks have rolled out a new way to allow web site visitors chat with you. They’re calling it chatback and at first glance it seem comparable to Meebo Me but (arguably) a bit more lightweight. (I first mentioned Meebo Me in August of ‘06).

It really is not just like Meebo Me though — or is it? A bit more on that below.

Setup

It is quite simple to get rolling with chatback:

To get started, visit the chatback start page. (This is also linked from the Google Talk homepage.) Then just copy the provided HTML snippet to your web site. Visitors will then see a badge on your site indicating your availability, and can click to start a chat with you.

The snippet mentioned is just an iframe that you can dump on pretty much any web page — it doesn’t have to be a blog or CMS site.

Aside from what’s mentioned above, there’s not much else to it. A couple options that you can set and some copy/paste work. Once that’s done, be sure you’re logged into Google Talk or chat and wait for the hordes to find you.

About that Meebo Comparison

What makes this different than Meebo Me? Honestly, not a whole lot but I think it may prove to be a bit more convenient in the long run.

For folks to reach you with Meebo Me, you need to be connected to Meebo, the web based IM application. Not a hardship, especially if you’re a regular user, but not everyone is a regular user. Or you could use the pidgin work-around I wrote about. That’s likely even less common than regular users though…

Google Talk, on the other hand, gives options. You might have it running within your Gmail page. You might run the windows Google Talk application. Or maybe one of the gadgets or web based apps(do it with prism!).

Now, some would argue there are too many options to run Google Talk. I know I get bogged down at times trying to keep the features between the web gadget and the windows application version (damned window version still can’t do group chats, by the way!).

But, at the end of the day, for me it is just more likely that I’ll have Gtalk going in one incarnation or another. How about you?

Click over to my About & Contact page to see it in action.

We run Google Talk at work as our standardized (read: allowed) IM program. I wonder if the marketing or sales folks would want to add their chat widgets to some of our corporate contact pages? This could be an interesting way for them to be reached. Food for thought.

6 Responses to “Google Talk Chatback”

1. Trent on February 25th, 2008 10:37 pm
   

   I was using Meebo only after reading your site and with wordpress.com having it available. I personally think that while it is pretty cool, I just don’t really like to have another website open all the time. I already have gmail open, so this one fits me better. I quit using Meebo Me about 6 months ago. Now I have this up and running! Great stuff!

2. Chris on February 26th, 2008 7:15 pm
   

   Thanks Trent. It is pretty cool — although some wisenheimer stopped by earlier today and spammed me via it (and then apologized). Gotta watch for that I suppose.

3. Trent on February 26th, 2008 10:11 pm
   

   At least he apologized lol

4. Ken Gaebler on February 27th, 2008 2:34 pm
   

   Thanks for pointing this out. It seems like this is great for sites that are selling things. For a blog though? I’m not to keen on complete strangers starting to chat with me…but I will probably try this out just to see how it goes. I imagine the folks at LivePerson are pretty bummed out that this is now available for free. As much as I love that Google keeps giving us good free stuff, I do think it’s hurting quite a few tech entrepreneurs out there.

5. Chris on February 27th, 2008 4:29 pm
   

   Howdy Ken - I think if a blogger puts it in a sidebar or footer where it shows up on every page, they might regret that quickly

   I learned my lesson when I first started dabbling with Meebo Me and only have it on one (contact) page. Seems to work ok thus far…

   I doubt this would even be a blip on the LivePerson type company radar. Those “real” live support packages offer so much more than just chat — canned messages, queues, multiple operators, transfers, personalization and just about anything you’d expect in a regular “call center.”

   But you’re right - for a small company that wants to offer some simple support? This might be a nice start.

6. Steven on February 28th, 2008 1:27 am
   

   lol at the spammer apologizing.

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