The Google Talk team has been busy. True, GTalk is one of the more spartan instant messaging clients today, but this doesn’t mean the creators are not adding in features. In fact, what’s great with GTalk is that the client automatically checks for updates and will download and install the latest version released by Google. You don’t even have to wait long, because the client itself is only about one megabyte large. Compare that to the seven-something megabyte IM clients other networks have.

The latest with Google Talk

File Transfers. We had it coming. GTalk users were quite envious of Yahoo! AIM and even MSN Messenger users, as these all had file transfer capabilities. Of course one could always move to other networks when the need for transferring files comes up. But then again, having everything in one seamless application is always better. Google says you have no limits in transferring files. You can send tons of music, videos and all other sorts of stuff. Google talk even presents a thumbnail of an image if you’re sending a picture. Other files open with their default applications, and can be saved for later use.

Voice Mail. What’s the next logical thing to have after VoIP? Voicemail, of course. We can’t expect to let people be able to call us through our GTalk clients but not reach us when we’re momentarily away from our computer. Some people do leave their computers on all the time, and this includes the GTalk client. It’s great that your callers can now leave voice messages instead of just emailing their messages. You can even send friends messages even if they’re offline.

The message will be received by your contact via Gmail, and they can play it using their web browser or the message can also be downloaded as MP3.

Lastly, there’s the new Music Status and Google Music Trends. If you’re fond of listening to music on your computer, you can let GTalk display your currently played track as your status message. You can choose between “available” and “busy” to display the current track. This feature supports iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp and Yahoo music engine.