The release of a Google Messaging system named ‘Babel’ that unifies Google Messaging apps such as Google Messaging, GTalk and other Google Chat services seems pretty certain at this stage. A search for the term ‘Babel’ in the Google Groups Chromium database shows a large number of results and now Patric Dhawaan over on Google+ has captured a screenshot that is being seen as evidence that code for the service is already being integrated into Chrome or at least the backend of GMail.
In the comments of the thread, Patric describes how he grabbed the screenshot ‘I was just deleting a bunch of old emails and labels and somewhere while deleting a particular sender/conversation the message popped up’. Most likely at some stage Patric has been in contact with a Chrome Developer who is testing out ‘Babel’.
This new service would be a perfect product for Google to release at next months Google IO, especially if it comes with an Android App, Chrome Extension and possibly support for other platforms but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
Do you see the need for a unified messaging system across Google products?
Please integrate stock SMS.
Some interpretations of the “Babel” name: Obviously first thing that comes to mind is the biblical ‘Tower of Babel’ story where all of Earth’s people worked together to build a tower to the heavens then God scattered people across the Earth and made them speak different languages. Babel being code for the ‘unified’ messaging system, as right now Google’s various messaging apps don’t communicate or work in unison. ‘Babel’ could just be a code name for what they’re trying to achieve (and ironically what God punished them for). Or, Babel could be the official name (shudder) as Babel was the… Read more »
I just hope they call it “Messages” or something immediately obvious to everyday users. No need to create a fancy name – unless we’re talking about something totally ground-breaking that it needs a name like “Babel” as a brand name.
I’d think it likely the reference could also relate to Douglas Adam’s babel fish, also the name of the translation software. of course the roots of those names derive from the biblical reference, but have fewer negative connotations.
babel also has similarity to ‘babble’ (reported earlier) which shares similar sound and meaning to jabber, which itself will be part of their unified messaging given that GTalk has roots as an implementation of the jabber instant messaging standard.
Seems like exactly the kind of name they would choose.