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I have been using Google's Voice&Video chat exclusively since the day Microsoft announced the Skype purchase. Compared to skype, the experience is horrible. The

I have been using Google's Voice&Video chat exclusively since the day Microsoft announced the Skype purchase. Compared to skype, the experience is horrible. The audio and video quality is sensibly worse, the number of random disconnections and video freezes is pretty high. After a few minutes there is a noticeable lag in the voice connection, which gets higher with time. The general audio quality is worse then I remember having with "Speak Freely" back in the 90s, while I used a dial up modem. The Firefox plugin randomly refuses to work, and returns also random numeric error codes. Skype had, in my experience, none of these issues. Everything "just worked". Google is far, far away from that. All in all, it is so bad that it should be embarassing for Google to have it associated with its name. The only thing going for Google is that it is, after Skype, the only cross-platform voice&video offering existing on the market.

w1ntermute 15y ago
For this same reason, I continue to use Skype. However, the technical issues you mentioned are nothing to Google if it puts its mind to it. The difficult part is getting a userbase that justifies those efforts. This period of market instability is the perfect opportunity to do so.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  I dunno. Google's already had bright minds working on it for some time. Trying to do it in a browser will probably always be inherently problematic. Why they don't launch a standalone "Google Voice and Video" client... if there's an opportunity there, and they really want to own it, that'd be the route they should go, not more browser-plugin stuff. Heck, perhaps this is part of what facebook's recent spate of desktop-engineer-hiring is going after?
  - ianterrell 15y ago
    I think "probably always" is not a safe phrase to use when talking about the future of browsers. And whether or not you agree with that, I think it's clear that's where Google's money is.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Part of what I see is that Google does not have a good model for making Google Voice profitable given their revenue model because it doesn't drive eyeballs to Google search and the advertising customer base, and because datamining the communications of Google Voice's users for the sort of keywords and profiles useful for search has a huge potential for social blowback - imagine how some people would react to web page ad placement based on last night's booty call - not to mention the possible legal problems given the diversity of wiretap laws, e.g. state by state in the U.S. never mind world wide variations. [Edit] Given changes in Google's leadership and the apparent emphasis on core function which seems to be underway along with the limited rollout which Google has done for Voice, I would not be surprised if it is destined for the same fate as Google Health over the next few years.
    - Locke1689 15y ago
      Of course it drives advertising revenue -- in the same way GMail does. More people using Google accounts every day is a plus for Google.
  - Locke1689 15y ago
    Uh, how is a browser plugin different from a client-side application? They're both running native code. I don't see any technical problem.
davidw 15y ago
Huh. I switched to Google Video for speaking with my parents on the other side of the world, because Skype video just plain stopped working for some weird reason. It's slightly better both in terms of sound and video, and so far I've experienced less stuttering and freezes.
- Locke1689 15y ago
  Skype is a P2P based application so performance can vary considerably based on your location and network topology.
marquis 15y ago
I have far better experience with Google Voice quality when calling phones, but also find it disconnects with gvoice-gvoice so prefer Skype when possible. But with Skype-Skype calls, video conferencing etc and the ease of use with older family members, Skype has become so useful quite frankly I'm afraid that if Skype dies we'll put thrown back into the land of having no single point of guaranteed communication between all types of computer users. I hope that Skype succeeds for this reason alone.

w1ntermute 15y ago

For this same reason, I continue to use Skype. However, the technical issues you mentioned are nothing to Google if it puts its mind to it. The difficult part is getting a userbase that justifies those efforts. This period of market instability is the perfect opportunity to do so.

mgkimsal 15y ago
I dunno. Google's already had bright minds working on it for some time. Trying to do it in a browser will probably always be inherently problematic. Why they don't launch a standalone "Google Voice and Video" client... if there's an opportunity there, and they really want to own it, that'd be the route they should go, not more browser-plugin stuff. Heck, perhaps this is part of what facebook's recent spate of desktop-engineer-hiring is going after?
- ianterrell 15y ago
  I think "probably always" is not a safe phrase to use when talking about the future of browsers. And whether or not you agree with that, I think it's clear that's where Google's money is.
- brudgers 15y ago
  Part of what I see is that Google does not have a good model for making Google Voice profitable given their revenue model because it doesn't drive eyeballs to Google search and the advertising customer base, and because datamining the communications of Google Voice's users for the sort of keywords and profiles useful for search has a huge potential for social blowback - imagine how some people would react to web page ad placement based on last night's booty call - not to mention the possible legal problems given the diversity of wiretap laws, e.g. state by state in the U.S. never mind world wide variations. [Edit] Given changes in Google's leadership and the apparent emphasis on core function which seems to be underway along with the limited rollout which Google has done for Voice, I would not be surprised if it is destined for the same fate as Google Health over the next few years.
  - Locke1689 15y ago
    Of course it drives advertising revenue -- in the same way GMail does. More people using Google accounts every day is a plus for Google.
- Locke1689 15y ago
  Uh, how is a browser plugin different from a client-side application? They're both running native code. I don't see any technical problem.

davidw 15y ago

Huh. I switched to Google Video for speaking with my parents on the other side of the world, because Skype video just plain stopped working for some weird reason. It's slightly better both in terms of sound and video, and so far I've experienced less stuttering and freezes.

Locke1689 15y ago
Skype is a P2P based application so performance can vary considerably based on your location and network topology.

marquis 15y ago

I have far better experience with Google Voice quality when calling phones, but also find it disconnects with gvoice-gvoice so prefer Skype when possible. But with Skype-Skype calls, video conferencing etc and the ease of use with older family members, Skype has become so useful quite frankly I'm afraid that if Skype dies we'll put thrown back into the land of having no single point of guaranteed communication between all types of computer users. I hope that Skype succeeds for this reason alone.