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One underreported provision of Google's billion-dollar deal with AOL is that AOL will make Google Talk interoperable with AOL Instant Messenger.

Point four of the press release:

Google Talk Instant Messaging Software to Communicate with AIM users

And a little further down:

Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met;

This is game-changing, like several portions of the agreement. This sets up a straight up two-on-two battle, with Yahoo & Windows Live Messengers interoperable on one side, and AIM/Google Talk on the other. Considering AIM is the most popular client on the market, and Google Talk is the lightest client on the market, this alliance creates a powerhouse protocol that Yahoo and Microsoft, with their similar products, may not be able to compete with.

Expect AIM to keep its market share lead for a very long time.

(via eWeek)

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

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