IM Basics
How do you get started? The best way is to find a few friends already using IM, and install the same IM software they are already using. To make it easy for you, we've created a step-by-step guide to selecting and setting up your first instant messenger.
All About Instant Messaging
Instant messaging allows you to detect when your friends are online and send them short messages in real-time. People just like you and I are finding instant messaging a great way to keep in touch with friends, family and business associates. In fact, Jupiter Media Metrix has declared that instant messaging is the fastest-growing segment of the Internet, estimating that by 2003, 90% of the online population will use IM.
The BigBlueBall Instant Messaging Centers
What about the other instant messengers? Don't see your favorite here? Speak out in our Alternative IM Applications forum.
Latest Instant Messaging News
Storyblender Brings a Goofy Side to Casual Animation
Storyblender, which recently launched in private beta, is a new casual animation platform that will appeal to users who want customized movies in a hurry. If you’d like to try it out, you can grab one of 500 invites here.
The site is straightforward, which is a good thing because there doesn’t seem to be a tutorial yet. New users are presented with the video wizard that offers a number of pre-created movies that can be easily modified. Each movie is broken up along the bottom of the screen into brief scenes in a manner that will be familiar to anyone that has used a video editor like iMovie.
The site has hundreds of pre-rendered characters, backgrounds, music, and effects, which can be added to a scene by simply dragging and dropping. Nearly all of these have a distinctly comical look to them - the site doesn’t seem to offer “serious” movie making at this point. Instead, many of the backdrops and characters are better suited for video greeting cards (samples include “
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Facebook Chat to add Jabber/XMPP support
What do this mean to you? Well, the upside is that it will be easier for third-party developers to integrate their instant messaging program with Facebook Chat. For example, you could soon use AIM or Google Talk to see and chat with your Facebook contacts. Conversely, adding Jabber/XMPP support to Facebook Chat may also allow the reverse; you could potentially contact your friends on Google Chat (as one example) from Facebook Chat.
Currently, Facebook Chat works when you are on the Facebook site. Navigate away and you go offline -- at least as far as your Facebook friends are concerned. Allowing third party IM programs to hook into Facebook Chat would make it possible to stay "signed in" and available to Facebook Chat even when your browser is closed.
One third-party instant messenger has already cracked the Facebook Chat nut. Digsby already has integrated Facebook Chat with their multi-network IM program, so we know that it's technologically feasible.
You can read more about their plans from the Facebook developer's blog.
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Magnify’s New Blogging Plugin Tries to Make Multimedia Simple
Magnify.net has introduced a plugin for Movable Type and WordPress that attempts to minimize the effort required to add multimedia content to a blog. Magnify.net is a video discovery and broadcast platform that provides a hosted framework for video distribution.
The plugin, called Magnify Publisher, allows bloggers to search and embed content from over a dozen media sites including YouTube and Flickr without ever leaving their blog’s admin panel. Publisher also allows bloggers to upload videos from their computer, and to record clips on a webcam (sort of like seesmic). After choosing a video or picture, users are free to rearrange and resize their media from within their blog’s WYSIWYG editor.
Magnify’s CEO Steve Rosenbaum sees the plugin as a gateway to an online ecosystem where bloggers are the curators of multimedia. While there are a number of other blogging plugins that offer similar functionality, Rosenbaum says that Magnify Publisher is the first to integrate media search, upload, and webcam features. Magnify hopes that this combination will spur bloggers to regularly include more multimedia content in their posts.
I’m a little less optimistic. The plugin works fairly well and is easy to use (though the generic gray buttons really need a facelift), but it isn’t going to pave the way for a media revolution. Bloggers don’t typically include loads of media in their posts because it can be distracting - not because it is overly difficult to find an appropriate photo or upload a YouTube video. That said, Publisher is a handy tool that cuts out tedious steps and will appeal to many bloggers who aren’t tech-savy enough to fiddle with embed codes. Just don’t expect it to change the face of blogging forever.
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Zipit adds unlimited text messaging
Now Zipit has added unlimited free text messaging for one year with their newest portable messenger, Zipit Wireless Messenger 2. According to Zipit Wireless, "The addition of this feature offers new Z2 users truly free and unlimited text and instant messaging with no contracts or commitments."
“We are thrilled to give teens and their parents a true alternative to high cell phone texting plans,” said Frank Greer, CEO and President, Zipit Wireless. “To kick off our new partnerships with Bestbuy.com and Target.com we’re offering consumers a great way to keep in touch with friends for free.”
To qualify for the free texting offer, the Z2 must be purchased and activated by July 31, 2008. Consumers who do not purchase their unit during the promotional period will still receive 10 free text messages per month and can take advantage of one of the best values for texting in the industry – unlimited texts for one year for $29.99, compatible with more than 20 cellular carriers.
Reading the fine print, unlimited may be a slight exaggeration, as it appears to be capped at about 5,000 text messages per month--or about one text message every 8-1/2 minutes, 24/7. Hopefully enough for even the most active text messager.
Zipit also provides parental controls that limit use to certain days and hours, and who their kids can receive messages from.
Although instant messaging is already free with Zipit, the addition of text messaging could be a godsend to families with kids racking up big data bills on their cell phones.
Zipit costs about $149 and is available at Target, Best Buy or online.
Link: http://www.zipitwireless.com/
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Windows Live Messenger comes to the Blackberry
Even though the rumors remain unconfirmed, a new collaboration between the two companies has been announced for this year. The deal involves the integration of Windows Live services on the BlackBerry platform. The results of this collaboration will be available over the next few months. This means that the users will be able to enjoy their e-mail and also instant messaging services from their BlackBerry. Users will be able to work with a HTML supported e-mail and also links, graphics and contact photos will be available. The instant messaging will allow group chats, an avatar picture, emoticons, chat logging and it will also offer the send / receive files feature.
"When you think about our Web services, all of those will very much have a strong and stronger mobile component for them moving forward," Phil Holden, a Microsoft director for mobile services said, according to InformationWeek. He also added: "It's really about extending the PC access to the mobile phone in ways that are very similar."
The new phones shipped will come equiped with the services and users who already own the phone will be able to download it. Unfortunately, people won’t be able to enjoy Windows Live services without their carrier’s permission.
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Photobucket Introduces Group Albums to Make Sharing Simple
Photobucket, one of the web’s most visited sites and home to billions of photos, is introducing a new feature dubbed “Group Albums”. The feature will allow multiple friends to add their photos and videos to a shared album, which can be password protected and moderated by the Group’s owner. Group Albums aren’t currently active on the site - Photobucket expects to have them live by Wednesday morning.
Group Albums will support sharing via emailed invitations and RSS feeds, and will allow an album’s contents to be presented in a slideshow. Each album will have a maximum size of 1GB.
The feature will be handy for many Photobucket users, but it’s hardly novel. Similar features have been on social networking sites like Facebook for years.
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Nimbuzz - VOIP/IM aimed at mobile and social networks
Back in early 2007 Netherlands-based Nimbuzz launched a beta for its free application which supported voice, presence, and SMS.TechCrunch UK reports that Tuesday will see it aim squarely at mobile handsets and social networks, launching with Java and Symbian client software which will work across an impressive 500 handsets. This will allow users to make and receive calls across 50 countries, particularly emerging markets where PCs are just too expensive for most people. (An iPhone client is under development). Nimbuzz will offer free mobile VoIP, conference calling, IM and group chat and photo and file sending across multiple IM communities, including Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, Jabber and ICQ, plus 23 social networks, including apps/widgets for Facebook and Myspace, which are key to its distribution strategy.
Founded by two Dutch mobile veterans Evert Jaap Lugt (formerley KPN) and Martin Smink, Nimbuzz was most recently funded to the tune of $10 million by Mangrove Capital Partners (the original Skype investor) and says it already has 500,000 registered users since the beta launched last year.
Over the past two years about a dozen startups have started to offer IM to VoIP over mobile to take advantage of the increase in flat-rate data plans. They include Mig33 (which also offers IM photo sharing, VoIP and social networking features), Fring and Truphone, among others.
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