Google finally unveiled its much hyped communications tool. However, Google Talk is not a lot different than Skype, Yahoo! or Microsoft’s tools – in fact, for some, its inferior.

Here’s what Wired magazine has to say about the new Google Talk tool:

Google's Latest Is All Talk

Wired, August 25, 2005

 

After several months of feverish speculation about a mysterious new service under development, Google unveiled its latest tool Wednesday: Google Talk, a text-chat and voice-communication program that looks nice, but has no obvious advantage over competitors. The moment you fire it up, the sparse white design and primary-color logo make it obvious that this is a Google application. When not in use, Google Talk shrinks down to a "speech bubble" icon on the Windows taskbar (for the time being, it's available for Windows only). Clicking on this opens the main pane, with a searchable list of your contacts, or "friends" as Google optimistically calls them. – Google's Latest Is All Talk 

ZDnet also rings in with a less than flattering review:

What's exciting about Google Talk?

ZDNet – August 25, 2005

I'm a bit underwhelmed with the launch of Google Talk, which is a bit of a surprise, since Google has a history of coming up with decent services. I use Google Search dozens of times every day, and check Google News every hour or so when I'm at the computer. (More if I'm procrastinating… thanks Google…) Gmail is the only Webmail service I can stand using for actual mail (as opposed to catching spam. Any Webmail account will do nicely for that) and I've even taken a shine to the Google Toolbar for Firefox. What's exciting about Google Talk?