Jun
25
Instant messaging
Who can tell me whether there’s a place for instant messaging in our lives, and if so, how to use it?
The concept seems as if it’d work for family and friends - we’re all online at various times throughout the day and the idea of firing off a quick message instead of an email or a blog post (or phone call or SMS) has merit - but setting it all up seems ridiculously complicated.
My cornflakes packet research seems to indicate that if Kate has a Yahoo Messenger account and Rob has a Microsoft Messenger account and I have an iChat/AIM account none of us can chat to each other. Is that right?
The fact that I have to ask the question proves that it isn’t simple.
Rob - June 25, 2007, 11:04 pm
According to 99.9% of people, you’re right.
BUT the linux world has done it again. On our linux PC’s at home, we’ve used ‘Gaim’ as the instant messenger to talk to everyone on their Microsoft Messenger accounts (everyone we know uses that one). It also allows you to chat with other types of IM though.
The makers of Gaim (the nerds) though have since renamed it to Pidgin ( http://pidgin.im ) and it allows you to log into multiple accounts on multiple services at once. You get one window with all your contacts no matter which IM they use (you need an account on all of them though).
Pidgin runs on Windows and Linux, and there is even a version called ‘Adium’ ( http://www.adiumx.com ) for OS X.
So Linux wins the day again. It’s free and it works on everything.
Rob.
Rob - June 25, 2007, 11:17 pm
As far as “is there a place in our lives and how would we use it” ….
Obviously it is great for family and friends. Add file sharing and video chat and it’s cool.
At my workplace it’s used extensively in cross-State teams. When I help out on the Service Desk, the whole team are logged into one big chat session. There are 10-20 people spread around the country, some in offices on their own, with no other regular interaction with their team mates. They can be on the phone with a client and use it to ask for help, advise instantly of an outage/problem or simply share a laugh or vent their frustration. It actually works really well. It’s full of informal chat mixed in with work related topics. I know the Service Desk Team pretty well now, even though I’ve only met about 5 of them.
A lot of the technical specialist gurus also use it to contact each other. They get way too many emails, the phone is always ringing and they are always busy on a complex job. They tend to ignore all the normal contact methods while their concentrate on what they are doing. BUT when someone really needs to reach them (ie their boss or someone important enough), IM is what they use. It can be restricted to selected people and is instant enough for a fast response.
Hope my huge essay helps.
Rob.
Marty - June 26, 2007, 9:26 am
That’s all very well and I know IM has plenty of workplace benefits, but how can we make it work for us?
Workplaces can standardise their messaging system (e.g. to Windows Messenger), but the likelihood of all our family (including those in Europe) and friends standardising on the same system is low.
So where’s the real-world, non-workplace advantage of IM?
* Note that I wrote this comment before seeing your first reply.
simon - June 26, 2007, 7:09 pm
Yahoo Messenger people can chat to MSN Messenger people now…haven’t tried it, just seen it advertised. I doubt your iChat can, purely from a Mac to Windows predominant based deal. But it may…
As far as us all using it? I think the chances of us all being online at the same time are about the same as every messenger service being inter-connected! Sure we could arrange times, but its pretty hard…
Bek and I are normally logged in every night, whether we are there or not depends. But so is Rob usually -
I guess if i needed instant communication with anyone, i’d probably just call. sure it costs more i guess.
perhaps we should all get Skype and some microphones and webcams.
Skype is free “phone calls” to people, so voice messages and webcam action…same as some of the others, except you can use Skype as a work or home phone with reduced call costs too as far as i know!
anyway, i’ve done a big essay too…
SIM
Marty - June 26, 2007, 7:44 pm
Rob your two “missing” comments were waiting for me to moderate them - my comment-spam blocker thought they were spam. I deleted one and approved the other.
Anyway, I discovered today that Apple iChat 3 users (i.e. me) can talk to MSN Messenger accounts after all. An open source protocol called Jabber is the key. I’ll go through the steps later tonight and might give one of you a call to try it out.
* Update - maybe tomorrow. This page has all the info I need but I can’t be bothered doing it now. In the meantime can you email me your MSN IM names?
simon - June 27, 2007, 12:15 pm
My messenger name is my email addy - at least thats what you use to add more people to Messenger.
Marty - June 28, 2007, 1:47 pm
Instead of going through the iChat/Jabber set up I downloaded MSN Messenger for Mac last night, got myself an MSN account and successfully IM’d with Rob and Nic.
It’s not ideal:
- I don’t like being forced to set up accounts with the providers that my friends and family use just because the providers can’t get their collective act together,
- as far as I can tell MSN Mac doesn’t provide video support at all (unlike iChat), and
- there’s no integration between MSN Mac and Mac Address Book, so when I store Rob’s IM address in his contact card I have to store it a second time in my MSN contact list,
but it’ll do for a while … at least until Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Jabber and Apple get it all sorted so that IMing with anyone on any platform is easy for everyone. Wouldn’t that be nice ……
Anyway, I’ll be sure to sign in to MSN often so stick martinjy at hotmail dot com into your IM contact list and give me a bell.
(I’m not worried about the spam implications of publishing that email address online as I’m never going to check it for email!)
simon - June 28, 2007, 3:39 pm
you were fortunate to get martinjy.
Marty - June 28, 2007, 3:55 pm
Yeah I was I guess. I’ll try to get something good for Jayne too.
I still own simon-young.com if you ever want it?
Kate - July 1, 2007, 9:42 pm
It was good to chat to you for a minute the other day! We’re on most nights, and often during the day. I’m often marked as “Busy” but thats just so I don’t get a billion people coming up at once to chat (yes I am that popular, LOL). Did you add all those emoticons I sent you? Make sure you use them when you talk to Rob, he LOVES them!
Hope to chat to you on there again soon. We’re upgrading our net this month and will FINALLY get a new webcam, then you can see us and our kids when we chat!
Marty - July 2, 2007, 7:16 pm
Can’t do video cos Messenger Mac doesn’t support it. We’re stuck with text-only for now until I configure iChat to work with Messenger….