Google Chat = Google Talk + Gmail

Here it is, ready or not! The cohabitation of all of your Google Talk conversations inside your Gmail interface as a searchable collection of message threads. This is a significant step toward amalgamating two useful yet until now separate conversational modes: email and instant messaging. Google, of course, sees the value of organizing and search-izing every single communication, regardless of formality or mode of sending, and so the Chat feature which now appears in your Gmail sidebar will enable you to keep these many thoughts collected.

Googlist has mixed feelings about the cohabitation. Strongly mixed sentiments actually. The greatest excitement is the idea of searching "Ned" and having everything Ned has ever said, whether it be "lol" or the emailed photos from his Botswanan vacation available for perusal in less than a second. Then there's "The Privacy Issue." The debate most people are having now is whether or not to grant Gmail the ability to record these chats in their email. Googlist points out two things in saying this will soon be an irrelevant concern:

1) The ability to save conversations within Google Talk will very soon be fully functionalized such that users of just that program can have a fully logged album of mesages. This is nearly promised with Google's mention in the Chats feature that chatting within Gmail will be available shortly.

2) The password schemes used to access Gmail and Google Talk are the same for a given email address. So there is no way, outside of creating an account like hellogooglist48390089023@gmail.com, to prevent access to saved Google Talk messages from users who have hacked the Gmail account (once feature #1 has been fully realized).

So, for the most part, the mashup isn't really going to be the privacy concern we think it is. Googlist recommends getting yourself an alias email account for Google Talk if you are concerned about privacy so much that you do not wish to enact the Chats feature in Gmail. Because without that safeguard, the douche that knows your email password is the same douche who can chat online as you and read all your online conversations. Soon, anyway.

Update: As soon as I posted this, the Gmailers updated their login page with a message about the new "Chats" feature. Sounds like Google Talk will be shoved aside to make way for a sort of communication one-sheet that combines email and chat in the same place. Forget the two apps, this is total amalgamation!