Back in 2009, Google Talk toyed with a similar idea of realtime chat as a platform for other applications to build on. [0] The demos were very neat at the time,

Back in 2009, Google Talk toyed with a similar idea of realtime chat as a platform for other applications to build on. [0] The demos were very neat at the time, but it turned out to be a brief detour along a road that ended with Google stripping out extensibility and interoperation from Google Talk and building it into the service we now know as Google Hangouts. I love the idea of chat as a platform, but Facebook will need to convince developers it won't close the door on them down the road. [0] - http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2009/05/attention-nerds-new-gadgets-api-for.html http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2009/05/attention-nerds-new-g...