Simplifying IM
I currently have 5 different Instant Messaging accounts. ICQ, AOL IM (AIM), Yahoo!, MSN, and Google Talk. Aside from the obvious hassle of remembering 5 different names and passwords for 5 different services (hmm, wouldn’t OpenID be a great solution here?) I also have to deal with finding a way to connect to all of those services as well as trying to find some way to manage my chat logs so that I can actually find stuff when I need it. Thankfully, people realized that having 5 different messaging clients is a pain, so we now have all-in-one solutions like Pidgin and Trillian that make this much simpler. And, if you’re traveling, there are excellent services like Meebo that allow you to chat from anywhere using just a web browser.
But, and this is a big one, with all of these various ways to access our IM networks now, we’re leaving chat logs scattered everywhere with no way to effectively find stuff we need. Not only do you have to remember WHO you talked to, WHEN you talked to them, and WHICH network they were on, but you ALSO have to remember HOW you accessed that network so that you can find the log! It’s enough to drive a normal person insane! But, thankfully, it doesn’t have to be like that. I’ve spent the last 3 days pounding my head against my keyboard to finally come up with a solution that I find almost perfect (of course, YMMV).
I’ve been a big fan of Gmail for a while, and when they added Google Talk functionality right into the contact list I actually started using it. Shortly after that I started using an actual chat client to connect since having to use the web interface all the time drives me nuts. Then I noticed something cool. Gtalk not only logs your chats when you’re on gmail.com, it logs your chats no matter where you are! Now, privacy concerns aside, this was great news. I could chat from anywhere, using any client, and still access my entire chat history on Gmail. This was a fantastic feature! Unfortunately, out of 140+ IM contacts, 2 were on Google Talk… so this wasn’t all that great after all…
But wait! Google Talk uses the Jabber protocol… and Jabber allows IM gateways to other networks… hmm… I wonder…
So I present to you my Unified Messaging Platform™©®∞! You take one serving of GTalk, sprinkle in some Jabber-y goodness, fold in a handful of Jabber-to-other IM network gateways, bake for 35 minutes and voilà, pure messaging satisfaction!
I now use any chat client I want (including the Gmail web interface) and see all of my contacts from ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, and MSN. I can talk to anyone on any network and, as far as they can tell, it’s still my same old username. But, in fact, my chats are being logged to my gmail account so I can always find them when I need them.
Now all of this talk is just fine, but it doesn’t help anyone but me, right? Well, in short order, I will be unveiling the grand design to allow anyone to simplify their messaging. But it’s definitely not going to fit into a single blog post so it’ll be an actual guide under “Geek Pages”. (Look to your right.)
