Google releases GoogleTalk API

December 17, 2005


Google has released their API for GoogleTalk. Wow! Just think of the mashups. Now you can mashup Google search with Google Maps and GoogleTalk. So for instance, one guy mashed up the Best Buy XBox 360 inventory with Google Maps which then displays pins on a map displaying the available Best Buy stores. You can then click the icon to see how many Xbox 360s are for sale. With the GoogleTalk API perhaps soon you'll be able to initiate a call to the Best Buy store. This is but one simple example of using the GoogleTalk API, I'm sure there will be some even more creative uses, including the ability to build social communitiies or even used for online gaming. This certainly puts some pressure on Skype to open up their API even more.

Here's some info from Google's website:


Google Talk uses a proposed extension to XMPP known as Jingle which can traverse many types of NATs, to establish peer-to-peer connections. The Jingle protocol is based on Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE), which is very successful in bypassing NAT. I wrote an in-depth aticle about ICE recently with regards to Microsoft and Cisco supporting the ICE standard. This now makes it at least three major players - Cisco, Microsoft, and Google supporting ICE.

Libjingle is a set of components provided by Google to interoperate with Google Talk's peer-to-peer and voice calling capabilities. The package includes source code for Google's implementation of Jingle and Jingle-Audio, two proposed extensions to the XMPP standard that are currently available in experimental draft form.

We are releasing this source code as part of our ongoing commitment to promoting consumer choice and interoperability in Internet-based real-time-communications. The Google source code is made available under a Berkeley-style license, which means you are free to incorporate it into commercial and non-commercial software and distribute it.

In addition to enabling interoperability with Google Talk, there are several general purpose components in the library such as the P2P stack which can be used to build a variety of communication and collaboration applications. We are eager to see the many innovative applications the community will build with this technology.

Below is a summary of the individual components of the library. You can use any or all of these components.

Finally, courtesy of makeyougohmm.com, they list some important Google Talk API newsgroups in case you are interested.

Google Talk Open
Google Homepage API
Gmail Agent API
Google Deskbar API



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» Google Christmas Jingles: GoogleTalk API Released from VOIP Blog
The big news that we have been waiting for: Google has released their API for GoogleTalk. This is very exciting news in the VoIP industry for the implications are tremendous and applications are virtually limitless. Google Talk uses a Jingle XMPP to... [More]

Tracked on December 19, 2005 1:00 PM

Comments to Google releases GoogleTalk API


  1. Andrea Bauer :
    December 20, 2005 12:04 PM


    Besides I guess that the open-source-policy of Google not only promotes innovations since potential mashups were enabled but also raises the adoption rate of Google Talk’s VoIP service.


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