What I've been working on

I've been working on a javascript API to let gadget developers use realtime communication. I'll write in more depth later (I'm in the keynote at Google I/O right now).

Here's the documentation and here's a link to the discussion group.

There are a ton of cool things this will let developers do. For now, this is a developer preview and the feature's only available on the Talk Developer Sandbox, but it will be available soon in orkut and iGoogle. We wanted to get it out to developers as soon as possible for feedback on the API and to let you get a head start writing gadgets before we launch this to the public.

At SXSW

I'm back in Austin for the weekend at SXSW. I'll be at the Google both (421-423) in the exhibit hall from 4-6 today -- come by and say hi if you're in town!

Also I just added the FriendConnect "followers" gadget to my site -- try it out to follow me in reader and discover friends who also follow this site. FriendConnect's pretty cool and I hope to write more about it soon (when I'm not sitting on the floor at the convention center).

Interested in trying out some early Google tech?

My first post in a very long time, and I'm shilling :)

The project I'm working on is doing a limited invite-only release, and we're looking for some javascript developers to help test it. If you enjoy writing gadgets and want a chance to try out something fun, email me or leave a comment here!

UPDATE: please leave me an email address if you comment. I won't publish these comments so no worries about spam.

New experimental version of Talk

We just launched a version of Talk to Labs:

Talk Labs Edition.

Enjoy!

Chatback launched!

Another cool feature of Talk just shipped. Check out the link over on the right -- if I'm online, you can chat with me, even if you don't have a Google Talk account.

However, I won't be online for a while since I'm leaving for Hawaii early tomorrow morning :)

Cool bot!

A reader of this blog, Bruno Nery, sent me a link to a very cool bot he wrote called rcc. It lets you register yourself as an "expert" on various topics and routes questions about topics to the experts on them. It's an excellent example of a simple, useful tool built on top of XMPP -- I'd love to see more things like this done by third parties. Google Talk is a small team and we don't have time to do even a tiny piece of the cool stuff that XMPP enables -- and the developer community at large has many more ideas about cool stuff than we do!

Google Ski Trip

On the bus ride up, the dangers of many engineers in close confines:

Tour operator/guide: "...and they are planning to install some sort of transportation device, the longest of its kind, between Whistler and Blackcomb peaks. I'm not a skier, so I don't know the name of it, tram? No, maybe it's a French word?"

anonymous voice from the back of the bus: "Trebuchet?"