Blogger has added integration of the AJAX news bar and YouTube/Google Video bar as an easy drag and drop addition to your template. The bars are available for every website, as well as blog and web search bars, but Blogger’s addition makes it easy for less advanced users to configure and just drop in.
Also, Anothr is making it easy to receive RSS feed updates in Google Talk. Read more at Download Squad. Finally, Google released today a

Google made a few updates to the Google Talk Gadget that was released last month. They have added a “Pop out” button at the upper right corner that allows you to open the gadget in a new window, they have also created a button for webmasters/bloggers to put on their website.
Another new feature is that when you paste a Flickr URL, it will turn into a slide show, in addition to Picasa Web Albums and watching YouTube videos.
I still do

Yahoo has started integrating Yahoo Messenger into Yahoo Mail, just like Google did with Gmail over a year ago. Because of Yahoo’s cool tabbed IM interface, the IM window is full size, supersized even, making for lots of room for avatars, rich text editing controls, and timestamps.
I’m not sure how integrated it is in Yahoo Mail and how it compares to Gmail Chat, but it’s interesting to see this becoming a trend

Turns out Google Talk hooks into the operating system to give you some command line options, which means you can create desktop shortcut icons that link to specific Google Talk actions. As Ionut Alex reports, using “gtalk:chat?jid=[Gmail-Username]@gmail.com” will launch a Gtalk chat window for the specified contact, while “gtalk:call?jid=[Gmail-Username]@gmail.com” will automatically call that person.
What you can do with this is create a shortcut, on your desktop, that launches exactly the chat or call option you are interested in, and you can even create an icon for it (like a picture of that person’s face)

Over a year ago, Google paid a billion dollars for a chunk of AOL, and probably the most exciting part of the deal was the announcement that Google Talk and AOL Instant Messenger would probable eventually connect to each other. Finally, after 13 months of silence, Googler (and former AIM developer) Justin Uberti has sorta maybe confirmed that Google is still working on it, or at least that the official statement (”We are working actively on integrating AIM access in Google Talk.”) still applies.
On the AOL side (connecting AIM to Google Talk), he’s not sure if AOL’s new management will make it enough of a priority, but notes AOL has a project in the works to allow Jabber clients (Google Talk is one) to access the AIM network, logged in under AIM screen names

While no doubt Google’s simple and clean applications have been a hit with some users, I’m really impressed with what Yahoo is showing off in its new Messenger for Windows Vista. The product isn’t out yet, but looks to be almost ready, and they’ve got a video showing off its capabilities.

The new Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista takes advantage of a new technology in Vista called the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which makes it easier for developers to create applications that use rich graphics without some of the massive coding and design work previously involved in such applications, and with better performance by taking advantage of native Windows Vista technologies

Got a strange message from Google Talk yesterday:

Looks like a new version of Google Talk is available, one that adds support for Windows Vista. Of course, if you already have Talk installed (which would require you to have had Talk installed under Windows XP, then upgraded to Vista), Talk can’t upgrade itself, and you’ll have to uninstall it, then reinstall from Google.com/talk. Otherwise, everything seems exactly the same, and it runs perfectly fine.

Google Enterprise VP David Girouard spoke to InternetNews, and he dropped a lot of interesting info. Chief among them: Google Talk “will be beefed up to integrate with traditional phone systems as well as VoIP offerings from other vendors”. That seems to be saying that Talk will be able to make phone calls, but certainly isn’t specific enough to be absolutely sure

I’m gonna need more cowbell!
Gmail’s got an easter egg of an emoticon, one that is definitely a reference to a great SNL sketch starring Christopher Walkin. Just enter +/’\ into a Gmail chat window and hit enter. Enjoy!
Courtesy of Daniel and KP in the comments.
I got a fever. And the only prescription… is more cowbell!