GMail + Google Talk

Anyone who has visited GMail over the past day or so would have seen this:

New! Chat is coming soon

Chat with your friends from right inside Gmail. There’s no need to load a separate program or look up new addresses. It’s just one click to chat with the people you already email, as well as anyone on the Google Talk network. And now you can even save and search for chats in your Gmail account.

We’ve started rolling this out to all Gmail accounts, so yours should have it soon. It’s good to chat.

Well, I would love to just say bleh, but I have to admit this is an excellent move by Google to claim Instant Messenger market share from MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, and the like. With these kind of moves, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google Talk takes over the IM market the way MSN Messenger took over ICQ’s position.