Lessons in Building Scalable Systems

I gave a presentation about the Google Talk Service a while ago at the Google Scalability Conference hosted by Googlers in Seattle. You can watch the video below.

Here is the abstract:
Since launching Google Talk in the summer of 2005, we have integrated the service with two large existing products: Gmail and orkut. Each of these integrations provided unique scalability challenges as we had to handle a sudden large increase in the number of users. Today, Google Talk supports millions of users and handles billions of packets per day. In the presentation, I discuss several practical lessons and key insights from our experience that can be used for any project. These lessons cover both engineering and operational areas.



Posted by Reza Behforooz, Software Engineer

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Google Talk Gadget on Google Apps

If you use Google Apps at your business, organization or school, you can now use the Google Talk Gadget on your Start Page to have chats with colleagues or classmates (including group chats). Google Apps lets your organization create Gmail accounts that use your domain name -- like me@my-organization.com -- instead of @gmail.com in the email address. It also offers collaborative tools, like Google Calendar, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and the customizable Start Page, where all your students, employees, or members can view relevant content, preview their inboxes and calendars, and now, chat with one or more colleagues or classmates -- all from the same webpage.

As a Google Apps user, you can add the Google Talk Gadget to your Start Page by clicking on the "Add stuff" link on the top left corner of your homepage, opening the 'Google Apps' category of gadgets, and clicking 'add it now.' If you're a Google Apps administrator, click here to learn how to add the Google Talk Gadget and other content to your users' Start Page. If your organization doesn't use Google Apps yet, you can learn more about getting started at http://www.google.com/a.

Adam Fass
Software Engineer

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Group Chat for the Google Talk Gadget

We use Google Talk all the time at work to chat with people on our team. It can sometimes be limiting, though, when you want to include multiple people in the conversation, like you can on an email thread or a conference call. That's why we're really excited to announce a new feature for the Google Talk Gadget: group chat. Now, for instance, when the two of us are chatting about an upcoming launch, and we've heard that Seth knows the latest, we can just invite him to join our chat.

To start a group chat, launch the Google Talk Gadget here, and start a chat with one of your friends. Click on the button at the top of the chat window that says "Group Chat," and then pick the name of the third (or fourth, or fifth...) friend you want to invite from the drop-down menu. They'll receive an invitation to join the group chat. If your friends are using Gmail chat or the downloadable Google Talk client, their invitation will launch the Google Talk Gadget.

Rhett Robinson and Qi Ke
Software Engineers

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How are you using Talk?

We focus a lot in this blog on the features we're adding to Google Talk and the technology behind them. But I wanted to share a bit about our users and what they're doing with Google Talk.

As a member of the Google Talk support team, my day is usually busy reading emails reporting issues, troubleshooting, and generally learning about what's up with Google Talk users and how we can make their experience better. Mixed in to the grab bag of technical issues are bits and blurbs from users who can't get enough of Google Talk. Nothing makes my day more than hearing from Google Talk users who enjoy using the product to keep in touch with their friends, families, classmates, fellow online gamers, and business partners. It's inspiring to be a part of something that helps make the world a smaller place.

Reading stories from avid Google Talkers has made me think twice about ways to use the product. Some users have come up with creative ways to help communicate with their contacts and loved ones:

"I'm an exchange student here in Monterrey, Mexico. I'm originally from France and two months ago I left my family and my loved one there. What I like about Google Talk is the MP3 message you get in your Gmail address when someone leaves you a voicemail. You see, my girlfriend works during the day, and with the time difference it's sometimes hard to stay the phone for a long time. So when she's sleeping and I, on the other end of the planet, am not, I leave her Google Talk messages and she listens to them at work during the day, while I am asleep. Also, she can transfer the MP3 messages on her USB device at work and take them home to listen to me if she misses me or she can just connect back to her email address and I'm there! In a way Google Talk helps us keep up our relationship and reduces a bit of the awful distance that separates us." -Olivier, Monterrey, Mexico.

"I am hard-of-hearing and in my daily work activities, and I conduct or
participate in meetings in the form of teleconferences. I dial in on my
desk phone, but I still need help understanding the others on the line, so
I use the Google Talk client for Blackberry.

That's not all. My wife is deaf and she is from an all deaf family. We
keep in touch with each other by using Google Talk for the Blackberry (like
hearing couples tend to use their cell phones) and keep in touch with deaf
family members and many of our deaf friends, no matter which IM client
they choose." - Steve, Dunbar, IA

I also love to read about the zany and fun things people are doing with Google Talk:

"I talk to my 1 year old niece on Google Talk. She lives in North Dakota and I am in Michigan.

She often says things like: jk[-;p//om90, or: .........ff.;;..;. ycv?"C( cc96? C9(?C'?(( (?(?9'"

It is very fun to talk to her via Google Talk. I hear that she runs
upstairs to the computer and says 'Lee lee' (her name for me) when she
hears the incoming chat sound." -Leigh, Commerce, MI

"I met my girlfriend in Abu Dhabi, UAE when I had gone back for my summer vacation. When I came back to the United States to complete my undergrad education, I didn't want to lose contact with her. We speak day and night through Google Talk. I can't count the number of times I've fallen asleep to wake up in the morning with the headset still on my head, and still connected to her." - Carnik, Abu Dhabi, UAE

If you have a story of your own, let us know!


Iris Lu
Online Sales & Ops Coordinator

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Something to :) about

Tired of expressing emotions to your friends with words? Exhausted by the two and sometimes three keys you have to press to enter an emoticon? The Google Talk Gadget has got your back. Today we're introducing an emoticon menu to put those :D and :-( feelings right at your fingertips. We've also heard you asking for a wider emoticon selection, so we added some new choices. You can choose from three different styles of emoticons. Maybe you like things simple and classic . Maybe you like them colorful and fun . Or maybe you're a square . Everybody can be themselves with the Google Talk Gadget, and you'll find it right here.

Jake Knapp
User Interface Designer

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Talking with TypePad

I was excited when the Google Talk Gadget launched in March, since it meant there was one more way to chat with your buddies on the Web -- it let you access Google Talk as a gadget on iGoogle or add it to your own Web page. Today we're pleased that TypePad has syndicated the Google Talk Gadget to their Widget Gallery, and we're looking forward to staying connected with our fellow bloggers. Check it out here: http://www.sixapart.comtypepad/widgets/chat/google-talk.html

Mary Himinkool
New Business Development

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Popouts, Buttons and Slideshows

As an engineer, one of my favorite aspects of delivering Google Talk through the web is that we can enhance it quickly. In fact, we updated the Google Talk Gadget today with a few new features:

(1) To make it easier to use Google Talk anywhere, we made it possible to pop out the Google Talk Gadget into a separate window. If you're using Google Talk on your Google Personalized Homepage, you'll find a link in right inside the gadget that lets you pop it out. You can also find the popout version of the gadget at http://www.google.com/talk.



(2) For website owners and bloggers, we announced earlier that you can add Google Talk to your own webpage with a single line of code. To take advantage of the new pop-out functionality, we created a new way to add Google Talk to your website: a button you can add that lets your visitors launch Google Talk in a separate window.



To add the button, just copy and paste this script into your site's HTML:

<script src="https://web.archive.org/all/20071010110117js_/http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/button"></script>

(3) We also wanted to highlight a way to use the gadget that others discovered shortly after our first release. If you use Firefox, you can run the gadget in your Firefox sidebar, so it stays open when you navigate from page to page in the main frame. Just click on the link below:

Google Talk Sidebar

You can also bookmark Google Talk for your sidebar in Firefox. Right click on the link above. Select "Bookmark this Link," then "Create In: Bookmarks Toolbar." Next open the Bookmarks menu from the Firefox menu bar, right click on the Google Talk bookmark entry, and select "Properties." In the menu that opens, check the box that says: "Load this bookmark in the sidebar."



When you open the bookmark, the gadget will load in the sidebar on the left.



(4) We also added some new media viewing capability to the gadget. In addition to watching YouTube videos and Picasa Web Albums slideshows, you can now also view Flickr photo slideshows by pasting URLs from Flickr into your chats.



We look forward to adding more and more features to the gadget. And you don't need to do anything to get the updates. Each time you load the gadget you will have the latest version.

Scott Ludwig
Software Engineer

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