One of the big holes in Google Talk is about to be filled--in a proprietary manner. Google is in the process of rolling out Gmail Chat, a feature that will save chat transdcripts within Gmail, and subject them to search. Saving and searching archived chats was impossible when Google Talk was rolled out. This integration of Google Talk with Gmail also helps explain why owning a Gmail account is a requirement of Google Talk.

Google has announced this feature, so it is not one of Gmail's stealth updates. Implementation is currently erratic; in my account I see a Chat category between Starred and Sent Mail, but there is no inline chatting as yet. Such is promised, though: chatting within Gmail, where (presumably) transcripts are automatically archived. This is fairly fabulous, especially for business users who must manually save many of their chats for future reference. And searching is always a problem because a chat might wander topically all over the map, and the saved file is difficult to name effectively.

Google's vision of integrated chat and mail is now clarified, and valuable. Other IM programs call out to the Inbox and notify when mail arrives. But enabling chat within the Webmail service, automatically saving the chats, and exposing them to state-of-the-art search, sets the bar at a new level. This is important stuff. I can hardly wait for it to be fully rolled out.