First being the Group chat option: Now you can chat with multiple contacts in the same window. i.e. conference. finally the feature which i was awaiting to have in my Gchat.
The second one is about the smiley :) yes, now you go can from B-) to
to 
Best part is, you can choose in which format you wish to have your emoticons!!!
i like the second one the most....
but y dont we have these option in Gtalk standalone application???
