Google Talk and AIM to Become Interoperable, with a Couple of Caveats

Gmail and Google Talk users have been able to chat with their AIM friends for several years now. But this required them to log into both their accounts.

Now, that is changing and Google Talk will become interoperable with AIM chat. However, this comes with a couple of hurdles for users and the transition won't be that seamless.

For four years now, Gmail users have been able to chat with their AIM buddies. They could log into their AOL account, inside Gmail, and their friends were added to the contacts list in the chat section.

However, users were unable to chat from their Google Talk account to their AIM friends or the other way around. The two companies are now working on integrating the two services, as a notice to AIM users in Gmail details.

"In the next few days, Google and AOL are working together to change the way you connect to AIM buddies within Gmail. After this change, Gmail and AIM users can talk directly to each other without having to log into both services," the notice reads.

After the transition is over, users won't be able to log into their AIM accounts from Gmail. Still, this sounds like great news for those still using AIM.

However, there are a few problems, the biggest of which is that there is no way of getting your contacts list from AIM to Gmail, at the moment. AOL is working on a batch importer, but, for now, the only viable way is to import them one by one.

"AOL is working on an importer to add your AIM buddies to your Gmail contacts list. You'll be able to IM them directly from your Gmail username, but your AIM Username will not show your online status," AOL said.

Alternatively, users could simply add their friends as Google Talk buddies.

"Just add your buddies' usernames in the format: username@aol.com to your Gmail contacts... Your online state will still not be shown to buddies," AOL explained.

Both methods have one big flaw though, your friends won't see your AOL account as being online, so you're essentially switching to your Google Talk one.

But there's another way, one that AOL likely wants you to take, simply grab the AIM desktop client which enables you to chat with your AIM and your Google Talk buddies.