I stumbled upon a new piece of beta software called Chatsum.  This one allows you to chat with web surfers on the same wave (website) as you.  You can chat, leave messages, and read other user messages.  This would make the web browsing experience completely different.  You can now surf with other people!  It currently works with FireFox, and a version is coming for Safari on Mac OS X Tiger.

I don’t like the idea of allowing other people to talk about a corporate website while looking at it.  If you had an upset customer, they could sit there and bad mouth you.  Even worse would be if they attempted to act like a company rep. and promise things or lie to the client or potential customer.  Not many websites allow/sponsor chat between users on the site, but it is possible with things like IRC and Java plug-ins.  A lot are using chat programs to offer sales help to potential clients.  I know HP, Dell, EarthLink, and smaller online shops use services like BoldChat, LivePerson, or ProvideSupport.  This is controlled chat, and I think that is okay, but I don’t like the idea of uncontrolled chat from a corporate perspective.

Festoon Plugs Skype Into Google Talk

Needless to say, I find this to be an interesting trend - the interconnection of IM services. I, for one, have four different IM accounts and as a result have four different IM clients on my desktop. What a pain.


I blogged earlier this week about Meebo, a creative way to use Web 2.0 design to have all of your IM clients merged within a single web page. On some level, I have to wonder if the interconnectivity of IM clients has a negative impact on the market potential for a web site such as Meebo. At first, I believed that Meebo’s power was in the interconnction, but now I have to imagine that its differentiation will be from its client-less approach.

The other curious issue is the value of the installed user base. With all of the IM’s being discreet communities (as it is today), there is a high switching cost for users as you need to get all of your existing friends to switch with you, so the value of that network was very high. With innerconnectivity, you can pick your favorite IM client and not have to worry about losing all of your contacts, potentially decreasing the value of these networks.


Of course, it will be quite some time before all of the functionality of each IM client is available across the board. When that finally happens, it will be interesting to see how each IM service tries to attract new customers through incentive programs and other marketing tools. My opinion is that this phenomenon will make the IM market look much like the cell phone market today, or the long distance market a few years ago.

Hello Meebo! This is an impressive little web application I came across this week. From the about page, it is a team of young and talented individuals that has combined AJAX coding and Web2.0 design principles to create a useful application. For people in a more corporate environment (like me) where there is specific technology in place to block access to desktop IM clients, Meebo is particularly attractive, as there is nothing to download.

As you can see from the screen shot, the site is still in alpha, and there a few annoyances that still need to be worked out (i.e. the site hasn’t yet implemented cookies to remember the passwords - typing in 4 username and password combos is a bit of a pain in the butt), but I will definitely be keeping an eye on this over the next few months. I will be impressed if they are able to get some of the advanced functionality of these IM clients working over a simple web application (i.e. getting the voice part of GTalk working, or hooking into cell phones). Also, because it is a web application, as they add new functionality I like the fact that I won’t be needing to update a downloaded client - it will just work.

Hopefully some fun functionality will be built in over the next few months, but for now I’ll be content just to IM with friends from work!

Just got ahold of the new Windows Live Messenger BETA thanks to an invite from Schlosser. Some of the new features are great, but some are lacking. I think the interface is still a bit cluttered, but better. I think the idea of search in everything is a bit over the top for people. I think 100% of the time I see searches in message windows is by accident. People just click the wrong button, which makes me think they are 1) too close together, 2) not useful. I think the biggest issue is that we are searching together, and don’t get to see the results prior to sharing them with your buddy.

I like the removed adverts below the main window when replaced with MSN videos. But again, let me remove them, and let me remove the search. I am interested in trying out Microsoft Communicator for my enterprise, so maybe in 2006 I’ll put together a test box and get it running, so I can compare feature sets. They just released a webclient to suppliment the Outlook Web Access idea, so there is no install when your on the road or at a shared computer.

I will send out invites as soon as Microsoft allocated them to me. I would guess that would be towards the end of the month or January.