Building on a Los Angeles Times article published today, the net’s heating up with rumors of Google announcing an instant messaging client, dubbed Google Talk, as early as tomorrow. This comes on the heels of the company’s Monday release of version 2.0 of Google Desktop, which is getting some good reviews. The Times cites several sources apparently familiar with the service, claiming it has been in a testing phase for at least a month.
With IM veterans AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft entrenched, it’s not unlikely that Google will incorporate some type of voice service into their client as an added incentive for people contemplating switching. Given the constant stream of news about VOIP these days, I wouldn’t be too surprised. Then again, whatever Google touches seems to turn to gold. We’ll all just have to wait and see.