Google has continued its push to turn Gmail into the ultimate one-stop-web-shop by adding Google Voice calling as a browser-driven service.

Needing some positive news following its announcement to ditch collaboration experiment Google Wave, the folk at Google announced that Google Voice is now available on browsers.

This means that without downloading any desktop application - like Skype makes you do - one can make VOIP calls.

As a marketing ploy, Google allowed free Google Voice calls to the US and Canada to several countries, including Australia.

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Those who know me would attest that I would have been following the 2010 Federal Election very closely regardless of what was topical on the policy front. I am a political tragic and a lover of the much-criticised 24 hour news cycle - and my wife is the authority to affirm that fact.

However, regardless of the result this weekend, all of us in the internet industry have to be delighted that for five weeks, our world and our concerns were shared with the masses.

Fibre, wireless, megabits, open internet, filters, etcetera became part of the vernacular of politicians who don't even know how to turn on a computer, let alone Tweet or use Facebook.

Due to the broadband debate, more Australians now know that parts of the world have connection speeds up to 100 times faster than we do here downunder.

Most also understand that this is due to fibre-optic cabling; something no commercial enterprise has decided to build in Australia due to our small population and the unlikelihood that they will ever make a buck from a $43 billion outlay.

Most Australians also now know that an internet filter designed to censor offensive content from the internet (such as child paedophilia and how to join Al Qaeda) sounds nice, but is unlikely to work and could be abused by a group of legislators sooner or later.

If it did miraculously work and wasn't abused, the geek community that rules the online world will not stand for any censorship on the 'open internet'.

Here is my summation of these two topics - National Broadband Network (NBN) and the Internet Filter - which served the internet industry brilliantly by raising internet to the very top of the policy pile, ahead of Health, the Economy, Industrial Relations, Immigration and Climate change...

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Traditional media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his company News Limited's attacks against every giant in the 'new media' are becoming too obviously cringing to let pass.

I've written before about the Australian-born American Murdoch taking on Google for publishing 'his news'. This time his target is VOIP giant Skype - the company that provides free voice calling to millions worldwide.

He is picking on its name, stating the use of the letters 'Sky' from 'Skype' is a breach of copyright against one of his media brands 'BSkyB'.

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When Google Wave came, I jumped. In fact, my entire staff at KAYWEB jumped with joy.

We jumped so high that we credited it for what it was - the most revolutionary communications tool since the email was invented all those years ago.

The keyword (forgive the pun Google) in the above sentence is 'was'.

That's right... Google has ditched Google Wave.

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Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard launched the Google Student Voice initiative from the internet giant's Pyrmont offices, while also taking the opportunity to announce the Australian Labor Party's 'political social network', Labor Connect.

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