Google Moves to Outdo Skype

When Google released the Google Maps API, they allowed developers to create hundreds of applications using maps from Google (my favorite being ChicagoCrime.org that allows me to see all the crimes on my neighborhood block). Now they’ve released the same interaction for Google Talk – they’re instant messaging and VOIP application. This puts them a bit closer to direct competition with Skype.
This is so smart: to leverage the tendency to tinker and allow customers and fans to tinker under the hood of your products and services. You’ll see the same thing in the video game industry where fans release mods (modifications) of games – swapping out aliens for Smurfs or changing the location of a game from Mars to Camelot.
What’s an API?
API stands for application programming interface and is a way for software programs and services to talk back and forth to eachother. Most blog tools use an API that would allow audioblogging, photoblogging and other services to talk to your blog and post to it (with your permission, of course).
I hope that Trillian adds a plugin so I can not have to have all these thingies sitting in my system tray.


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