How to connect Google Talk to MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and More

Instant Messenger protocols have already gone beyond countable limits. Sadly, we have to install atleast half a dozen of IM clients to keep up with our contacts. In an effort to avoid this, Yahoo and MSN have made their networks interoperable, which means you can talk to MSN buddies from Yahoo and vice versa. Google has already announced its plan to make Google Talk and AIM interoperable.

Right now, we have no idea when GTalk will be interoperable with AIM, but what we do know is that Google Talk (which is jabber based) have opened up their servers for federation with other servers, which means with a little trickery you can connect Google Talk with AIM, MSN, Yahoo or ICQ and talk or add new buddies.

BigBlueBall has published an excellent step-by-step tutorial which shows you how to connect Google Talk with AIM, MSN, Yahoo or ICQ. The process involves downloading free Jabber client called Psi and connecting to a transport capable jabber server. Since the transporting component is on the server side, you don’t need to use Psi every time. You’ll able to see contacts and add new contacts from Google Talk as well.

Link: Connect Google Talk to AIM, MSN, & Yahoo

Thanks for the tip: Sindhu

This post was published by on June 23, 2007

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://www.techiesden.com vaibhav

    nice stuff, really useful. ;)

  • http://www.webmaster-dome.com/ Sreejith

    Well, I don’t do IM that much. Only IRC. And, I use only Gtalk for IM. Yahoo! just doesn’t work for me. Its full of newbies and its a waste of productive time.

  • http://www.thetechieblog.net/2007/06/21/internet-tv/ Internet Tv

    WOw! this is a real neat trick

  • http://www.thenetguruz.com Mohd. Hashim Khan

    @ Sreejith “its a waste of productive time”

    very true, those noobs at yahoo waste lots of time + those unknown people who come up and ask “asl” damn just fel kicking them on their face.. lemme do my work man!

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    You are certainly right Sreejith. I’m better off with emails, I rarely appear on IM.

  • http://lagopi.blogspot.com Ramanathan

    Trillian and meebo are better option. Anyway, i will give this a shot.

  • http://www.helloashok.com Ashok

    IM is required, if you are doing serious business. Also your customer sometime want instant answer, instead of waiting for response to email.

  • http://sindhu-s.com sindhu

    thilak forgot to mention the most important and coolest feature about this. After all the transporting being done, since you will chat via jabber, all your yahoo/msn/ other IM network chats will be stored on the gmail account your chatting via…that way you will never lost a chat transcript again! no matter which chat network it is… unlike the old days when yahoo/ msn chat transcripts were stored on the pc you were chatting from.

    so searching for a chat transcript should be all the more easier on gmail with the “chat:” term.

    and you can now login to any gtalk gadget supporting browser and not worry about anything your chats left behind to be cracked into!

    isn’t it wonderful how gmail encapsulates everything into our email accounts ?!!!

  • http://tech-buzz.net/2007/10/31/google-to-connect-with-multiple-im-networks/ Google to connect with Multiple IM Networks?

    [...] transport servers for several months now, and it requires some tricks to configure (more details here). But going through third party transport sever isn’t favorable to everyone, and that’s [...]