Raketu - Text, Voice, Video, Calls, SMS

[patndoris]

I just heard about Raketu. It seems to do an awful lot. It's a multi-client application that integrates AIM, WLM, YM, Googletalk, ICQ, Skype and Jabber). It also offers voice conference, video, calling (like Yahoo Call Out - and just like YH it's a paid service if it's not PC to PC), SMS, Text - this program seems to have it all. It's also boasts some social networking type features, such as RSS, media player, and video (clips, tv, movies etc).

They have a desktop version, mobile version, and online options. I've only played briefly with the desktop version thus far.

This all sounds great in theory but I'm not sure how well it works in reality. The download was quick and painless (tho I did have to change my user security settings to get the darn thing to log in to my other IM accounts). However, there was a handy dandy tip sheet posted for Vista users, so this wasn't as frustrating as it sounds - it was a follow the steps kind of thing ad it worked as they said it would. There was so much to look at and think about it was all a bit overwhelming. I'm kind of thinking simplicity might be better - but I'll give it a fair shot. I don't use the calling features (cheap long distance basically) so that is something that doesn't boost the usability for me.

Hoping to test it out a little more this weekend and perhaps if it fairs better than I anticipate I'll post back. Just wanted to get it out there if anyone else is looking for new options or just likes to try out new programs for the fun of it like I do.

[patndoris]

First, and maybe most important to me, I tried contacting someone offline from the website. At least on my end, the message sent with one word on every line. I tried it twice and both times with the same result. Even more disappointing was that my contact never received my offlines - so I couldn't verify what he saw on the other end of things. I would like to point out this was using the web interface with an offline contact, which is perhaps not the ideal testing situation.

Also, I received an email from the Raketu team about my original post. They wanted to point out something I had not mentioned:

We came across the review you posted about Raketu. We would just like to let you know, that Raketu also offers PC- PC calling which is free no limits both users have to have Raketu istalled. We pride ourselves on this Rak-Rak calls technology. It is a true Peer-to-peer no servers, no supernodes ( like Skype uses supernodes)
More about our Rak-Rak technology here: Raketu - RakOut with Raketu! - no-supernodes

PC-PC calling isn't new, and most every messenger program offers it. So again, I don't find that a big plus (or minus for that matter.) I've not tried it out yet so I'll reserve further judgement until I have.

I was able to flawlessly text with a Yahoo contact the other night. I didn't really expect anything exciting with it. It did show me as using an older version of Yahoo to my contact which was a bit confusing for them, but it was easily explained. I was also told that although they include Skype on the list of contacts you can interact with, it is actually handled differently. If you check the box for Skype it basically opens your Skype program - which really seems useless - at least to me. If I want to open Skype I can do that myself. But all the other programs like YM, WLM, AIM all pull in contacts pretty much like other programs.

If I find anything more exciting, or buggy, I'll post back. I'm still not too sure about this one, but I'll let it reside on the laptop for the moment until I've been motivated to try it further.