It could be good for PayPal fans -- if google puts together a great system, as I expect they will, PayPal may have to streamline their service a bit more and, who knows, take less off the top where transactions are concerned ;)

That would be trivial to do. Regarding chat, what's wrong with IRC?

-nontroppo (February 07, 2006, 05:29 AM)

Perhaps they meant an interface for instant messaging clients -- which is something I, too, think would be pretty cool.

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All in all this is a stellar release -- I'm especially glad to see that they've taken care to make gmail work perfectly in it.  No use for the widgets, yet, but the bittorrent is worth giving a spin.

edit
This article says it will be released first half of '06.

I, for one, am looking forward to it.  While PayPal gets the job done, I've always strongly felt that it only marginally lived up to its potential.  Kudos to them for being the ones to break first soil in online donations and direct person-to-person exchange of money . . . but I think a little competition, as is always the case, will be great for us, the consumers.  Here's to progress and price wars and the ever-expanding force that is google.  It's only a matter of time, their corporation will be an empire.