Google Chatback Gadget

The Google Talk team has been working their arses off these past weeks and has come up with two new features that will make heavy duty chatters' lives a lot better. First, there was the option to choose not to be seen by your contacts when you are online, the much talked about invisibility that would slow down a lot of chat if everybody starts using it. That happened on Friday and people voiced their concerns about having three platforms to use Google Talk and each had different features.

On Monday, the dev team came back with the Chatback Badge, that "will let visitors to your web page chat with you. They'll be able to chat with you whenever you're signed in to Google Talk." Their official description is not inaccurate, but it isn't really complete either. In order to chat with somebody using the gadget, you first have to approve the chat request before the person will be allowed to talk with you.

It's pretty easy to use, more like a series of clicks: the visitor on your site clicks on the link to chat with you if he/she sees you online. A Google Talk Gadget will open for the person and, at the same time, you will be notified and asked whether you'd like to join the chat, providing a link to the Google Talk Gadget that will open in the browser. Next comes the typing, no more clicking, sadly.

One problem is that the visitor can remain completely anonymous and nobody has only fans or people that like them. Avoiding an embarrassing conversation can only take you as far as the Chatback badge, from that point on you're on your own.

Apparently, the chats are off the record, thus not being stored in Gmail, according to Luka from Zorgloob. Checking the option to keep them will not help.