Google Talk: Now With More Fiber

New features can be found on Google Talk today, including unlimited file transfer between users and voicemail capability.

If someone isn’t "available" in Google Talk, you can record a message that is then sent to that person’s e-mail address as an audio file attachment. There is also a feature that lets you display the music you are listening to, so friends can see. This feeds into the social networking aspect of instant messaging that all portals will continue to develop (AOL recently purchased Userplane to build more social networking capabilities into its IM client).

These are attractive features built into an already slick Google Talk and are emblematic of the high level of competition among portal IM clients. Google currently lags behind Yahoo!, MSN and AOL for IM client usage (as it does with e-mail programs), but we expect its lead in feature development will help it gain market share considerably. More on the new features here.