Yesterday, Google announced that you can now login and talk to AOL Instant Messenger users via Google Talk, through Google Talk’s Gmail interface. Making the two instant messaging tools work together is a feature promised way back when AOL and Google formed a strategic alliance in December 2005.

If you read the old press release, one of the conditions of the agreement was:

Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met

Now, Gmail users can log into AIM via Gmail and see their AIM buddy list. The AIM buddy list will be integrated into your Gmail buddy list, but you will see the yellow “running man” logo to the right of your AIM friends’ screen names.

There is a ton of coverage of this announcement on Techmeme.

Related Topics: Google: Business Issues | Google: Gmail

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz