It's pretty clear now that Google are trying to take over the world and, with the rumours flying like timber in a hurricane, we were expecting an Instant Messenging application soon enough.

And here it is... Google Talk is Google's tentive reach into the Instant Messenger market, and like all things Google it is quite impressive. Talk is a small download which installs almost instantly and uses a lot less RAM than the popular MSN Messenger. It's also far cleaner, far simpler, and far more to the point than most any other messenger available, something that really appeals to the purist like me who has had to put up with IM bloat since ICQ collected features like a black hole of programming and became a chugging monstor of useless gimmicks.

Like ICQ, MSN Messenger has taken aboard practically every feature imaginable, none of which are that much use to anyone bar the voice and video features which appeared when it seemingly absorbed netmeeting, whiteboard et al. Google Talk, on the other hand, keeps it clean and simple but who's to know if it will ever stay that way? Surprisingly, beneath the clean and simple exterior Google Talk boasts voice chat on top of the requisite text... it's only a matter of time, then, before video makes it's appearance as well.

One last thing, Google Talk's contact finding mechanism is quite spectacular... I typed the first few letters of my GMail account and instantly saw my name appear, I could then add myself and invite myself in Talk and then switch back to Adium on my Macintosh to authorize. It searches your existing GMail contacts instantly and lets you add them. Adding new contacts is easy too, and automatically issues an invite to them a little like MSN Messenger.

If you want to get in touch with one of the GamingHeadlines UK team, then please feel free to us (gamingheadlines@gmail.com) to your Google Talk contact list.