This actually works really well. I just got it installed on my family and with some modifications to the iframe code and some inline CSS I got two balloons to go side by side in my sidebar - [heissfamily.blogspot.com]

andrewheiss

Pretty neat. Anyone know of a way to make it work with Google Apps for Domains? I couldn't get logged in with my GAfD account on the linked page, there doesn't seem to be any relevant info in the help section, and there doesn't appear to be anything for this in my GAfD dashboard... works fine if I log in with my standard GMail account, just not my custom domain.

cowboy_k

@thelouisguy: It does not really show if you have a large monitor, so try resizing the window and see what happens.

thelouisguy

I just put this on my website using inline CSS to have the balloon in the bottom left corner of my first page.
[thelouisguy.com]

thelouisguy

Interesting - think it could hurt services like LivePerson?

Jeff L

I tried copying the code and posting this on my myspace blog and notes on facebook and it was a no go. Guess I have to start a real blog like the rest of the world to take advantage of this...

mustng67

Looks like Google's site for this is down? Anyone else getting through?

sam1am

fyi, Windows Live Messenger has had this avaiable for a looong time. see liveside.net for details

also, meebo does this very well for their own system (but since you already use meebo to aggregate 'em all, this is perfect"

_||_

This is exactly like what Meebo has (www.meebome.com), except Meebo's chat thingy doesn't involve a pop-up window; instead, it's just an embedded chat box right on the page. But Google's version does take up less space on your website, which is a plus... Hmm, which do you think is better?

LearningNerd

Yeh, Yeh. Talk about Meebo. This is exactly what it does, except....it fails to display non-latin characters correctly (specifically - Cyrillic encoding). It kills it for me. Meebo folks need to think more globally.

bnosach

You can also add links to your site for Skype chat and Skype talk. I've had these links on my biz web site for a while. Two brave people actually started chat sessions.

daverap

doesnt work with google talk it seems.

i wonder why google is spending so much time on their web based chat app while there has been no updates lately for the desktop chat client.

diablofreak

I like plugoo [www.plugoo.com] for onsite chat. It takes up a little more space, but it's quite customizable and works with the messenger of your choice.

nordtomme

You can also try the digsby widget:
[widget.digsby.com]

bugmenot21

@LearningNerd: I really like how it is simple and small. I have to agree that the pop up window is annoying, but I doubt my friends will use it frequently. With that said, small (GTalk) is probably the way to go for me =).

Poob

meebo is way better - anyone can chat to me from my webpage no matter what client or computer im on.
portable firefox + meebo firfox extension = fully connected.

luke holder

[www.hab.la] is another free option, let's you chat with your visitors using any Jabber client (not just Gtalk), has a nice javascript API, and it's pretty customizable.

Google's chatbox is a good start, but they'll have to catch up if they want to actually compete with other widget providers.

jaminben