Odigo style messenger?

[annaalicege]

Hello everybody!

I've been using Odigo until its unexpected shutdown. What I liked most about it were the possibilities to find interesting people to talk to through tagging your interest an mood. You could always find someone new to chat with from all over the world.
The messengers I've tried (ICQ, MSN, Yahoo) don't make it so easy to find new people. Is there any Odigo style Messenger out there I don't know?

[Jeff]

Hi annaalicege, and welcome to BigBlueBall. I used Odigo back in the late '90s, and agree. It was a fun way to find new people. There has yet to be an IM that does exactly what Odigo did (the "radar" concept), but there are a couple services that do a similar matchup.

Tworl is a buddy-matching service that works with AOL Instant Messenger (I suppose you could use your ICQ account as well). I've tested it, and my impression was that it's difficult to catch people online, but your mileage may vary.

BuddyFetch looks a little more promising. It works across a wide range of networks, including AIM, Skype, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN, Google Talk and even social networks like MySpace.

Odigo had some great features, and it's a shame no other IM has stepped up to provide similar functionality. It really did the "finder" feature very well.

[annaalicege]

Thank you very much, Jeff!

I will give BuddyFetch a try soon!

[dpblue]

Yes, what happened with Odigo? I used it in the late 90s a lot. I have version 4 and it cannot find the server. The Odigo co. is gone?
Unfortunately no service you mentioned can compare with Odigo...You could go online to a site and chat on that subject with somebody else with the same interests in that site (he/she browsing the same site), no need for tags or any description. No other messenger or service can do the same, yet !

I cannot believe the co. just died....maybe it is under another name....

[dpblue]

Odigo was purchased for $20 million by Comverse Technology in 2002. Comverse planned to leverage the Odigo server software for instant messaging solutions in cell phones. Since Comverse had no interest in maintaining a general IM service, it was shutdown in 2004.
For a short time in 2004 Odigo Messenger allowed users to use the service to talk to users in other IM networks, but the feature was discontinued at the beginning of 2005, presumably for legal reasons.
[ Wikipedia - Odigo Messenger ]