The result has been the utter fragmentation of the market, with each chat software being an island unto itself, with little to no contact with anyone outside of it.
Sadly, Google found almost no other company that wanted to collaborate to create the standards by which such a system could flourish. You would have been able to talk to your friends using Yahoo Messenger or FaceBook Chat from your Google Talk console. Had Google been successful in the realization of their vision, then virtually all chat software in use today would be cross-compatible. Unfortunately, the other companies operating in that space were not interested in playing nice. Google made a valiant effort to unify the world of internet chat with the release of Google Talk.
