I have to say I really like the plain, functional simplicity of the Google IM client on Windows. It’s easy to manage multiple windows, you can easily see where a conversation left off, and there aren’t any ads anywhere.
One thing struck me as odd though — this is a IM client by Google, and yet, I don’t see any way of searching through old conversations. There’s a way to search for other users, but I’m surprised that a search engine pioneer didn’t ship an app with text search built-in.
(Yeah, I know Google Desktop probably indexes Google IM conversations, but still there should be a direct search from within the app)
A Whole Lotta Nothing 
The bad news is that google desktop does not index google talk chat logs :(.
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I’m running google talk on gaim, but didn’t really feel like loading another IM app. Maybe I’ll change my mind at some point, but I used google desktop for about 5 minutes before switchin to konfabulator.
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It’ll be interesting to see how all this pans out years from now. I gather the archival quality of conversations will be what anthropologists, criminologists, enthnologists, historians would love to get their hands on 20, 30, 100 years down. I just wonder if these would be available publicly or if these conversations can be saved for public study later.
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The changes they will have coming will more than likely encompass all of those features. IMagine the days back to Trillian 1 and even AOL messenger aoruns the 2 timeframe. Functionality was not there. I can only imagein with their desktop search and the new desktop bar for widgets, that it will all be intergrated very tightly, incluidng search lcoally and the web combined results. Even RSS.
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