Bridging The IM Divide
Instant Messanging (or more popularly known as IM) is a great part of the internet experience. It has existed for the longest time and has evolved over the years. It is a medium through which we can know when our friends are online and communicate with them when they are.
It used to be that people frequented chatrooms (Inter Relay Chat or IRC. mIRC being the more popular shareware IRC client). Although still a popular haunt to meet new people and share files, that has slowly given way to IMs. ICQ was the first that I remember using way back in 1995, followed closely by Yahoo! Messenger in 2000 when I moved in to campus for my degree. After I graduated and started working, MSN Messenger was the medium of choice for communicating with colleagues. There was also AOL’s AIM which I used to keep in touch with some online gaming buddies. There are many others but these are the four main ones that I dabbled with.
But having four seperate IM accounts meant it was difficult (if not impossible) to maintain. No matter how hard you try, one will eventually overtake the others in popularity. Rarely would I have more than one IM turned on at a time. The consequence was that I become closer to the people on that one popular IM at the cost of neglecting the others. For example, I have currently come full circle and Yahoo! Messenger is my choice IM.
A solution of sorts was made available in the form of client programs that supported multiple Instant Messanger protocols. A good example of this was Trillian. The program connects to the different services on your behalf and you get an almost seamless IM experience. All you had to do was configure it with the different IM accounts that you have. But using a third party to client meant that you no longer had access to the more advanced features of a particular service. All you got was the basics (or more accurately, the bare minimum that the developers implemented). You notice this lack of features even more now that IMs have further evolved to include not only text messanging but also voice and video. They have moved forward but using third party products meant you were kept indefinitely in the IM stoneage.
Is there a solution to this? Perhaps there is. Yahoo! and MSN are partnering to bridge the communication wall. If and when this goes through, it would mean a merger of the two largest IM communities. What a party that’s going to turn out to be. Now, if only the others would get into the act and then we’ll truly be connected. ETA early 2006. Hold your breaths.
Related articles:
Yahoo, Microsoft to Link IM Networks
Microsoft, America Online, MSN and Yahoo! Announce Industry-First Connectivity to Enterprise Instant Messaging Users
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eksk Said,
November 23, 2006 @ 5:32 pm
try meebo.com.. u dont have to dl anything just a webpage to access all four im platform. of course you wont be able to use the more advance options…
G: Been there, done that. The problem with meebo is that it’s somewhat unreliable. Yes, it’s a great medium if you’re desperate but when you’re not… There’s a tendency to lose messages in transit. Not that installed IMs are that much better but the loss is significantly reduced.
Back to the topic on hand. The point is that using MSN, you can now talk with people on Yahoo! and vice versa. Meebo on the other hand, you still have to log into two seperate accounts for that to happen.