I’ve been talking about it for almost two years now, but it FINALLY appears Google Talk is getting ready to integrate with AOL Instant Messenger’s network in the very near future – Google Operating System has the screenshots to prove it. This update looks to be one of improvements for the new version of Gmail (though it’s not currently available on the ‘new’ version that I’m using).

It’s been a couple years now since I last used the actual AIM client, but I remember absolutely hating it (wow I wrote that 2 years and 1 day ago). I’d be all for switching over to Google Talk completely but I still have quite a few friends on the AIM network who have likely never even heard of Google Talk – so I’ve been using iChat for the past couple of years to connect to both. When I can simply communicate with my AIM friends through via the Google Talk service, that will be great.

With AOL continuing its descent into AOHELL (remember that program?), at least Google can look back at their $1 billion dollar investment for 5% of the company as a way in which they helped grow their own small IM service by leveraging AIM’s millions of users. In the end, the AIM users may be all AOL has left…