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When Windows Live Messenger 2009 launched officially in January, it showed the amount of effort the Messenger team put into polishing the client to make it cleaner, more stable and more user friendly. However, when compared to competitors in the market, it appears WLM is lagging far behind. About.com's annual awards failed to give anything to Microsoft's IM client: A sign of a more competitive market.
Best IM Client of the Year: Yahoo! Messenger 9.0
Best Third-Party IM Client: eBuddy
Best Mac IM: Yahoo! Messenger for Mac
Most Improved IM: Yahoo! Messenger 9.0
Best IM Feature: Brosix Whiteboard
Best Chat Rooms: Yahoo! Chat
Best Designed IM (GUI): Yahoo! Messenger 9.0
Developers of the Year: Brosix (D-Bross)
Clearly Yahoo! Messenger came out on top, with it picking up five of the total eight awards available. Although one can question the manner of which these awards were judged (it seems user input was essential), there is no doubt Microsoft's lack of representation within the list is a significant sign to the changing nature of IM and its users. There is a definite rise in 3rd party clients, such as Pidgin, which have been critically acclaimed and yet don't show on the list.
View the full list at About.com
Best IM Client of the Year: Yahoo! Messenger 9.0
Best Third-Party IM Client: eBuddy
Best Mac IM: Yahoo! Messenger for Mac
Most Improved IM: Yahoo! Messenger 9.0
Best IM Feature: Brosix Whiteboard
Best Chat Rooms: Yahoo! Chat
Best Designed IM (GUI): Yahoo! Messenger 9.0
Developers of the Year: Brosix (D-Bross)
Clearly Yahoo! Messenger came out on top, with it picking up five of the total eight awards available. Although one can question the manner of which these awards were judged (it seems user input was essential), there is no doubt Microsoft's lack of representation within the list is a significant sign to the changing nature of IM and its users. There is a definite rise in 3rd party clients, such as Pidgin, which have been critically acclaimed and yet don't show on the list.
View the full list at About.comFor all of you who don't quite understand the title, the large IM producing software companies i.e. Microsoft and Yahoo! use their own protocol systems to communicate instant messages, an annoyance for developers who wish to make instant messaging a universal application, where popularity resides within the client, not in the network. Jabber is by far the most popular and modern IM protocol used by many applications.
I recently came across a post which details the problem with the likes of Microsoft's way of sending IMs:
The post highlights a prevailing problem with IM in our modern world. Technology has become about standards. Whether it's the using Bluetooth within phones, or reading our emails, regardless of which software we use. We expect similar services to work in harmony. Instant messaging still does not do this, and a consequence is losing users to other, more convenient methods of communication i.e. social networking.
Why You Should Avoid Using MSN
I recently came across a post which details the problem with the likes of Microsoft's way of sending IMs:
For the sake of argument, assume that you have a cell phone and you're subscribed to Carrier A. You then wish to call, or send a message to, a friend who happens to be a subscriber of Carrier B. Naturally, you would expect your messages to get across, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to keep in touch and your provider would be severely restricting you to their network.
Well, this is not the case when it comes to Instant Messaging (IM) Services like MSN and Yahoo because they're not standard. In order to communicate with other people, all members must be part of the same network, and this means that if the network goes down (and it does more than anyone’s liking), everybody goes down with it!
The post highlights a prevailing problem with IM in our modern world. Technology has become about standards. Whether it's the using Bluetooth within phones, or reading our emails, regardless of which software we use. We expect similar services to work in harmony. Instant messaging still does not do this, and a consequence is losing users to other, more convenient methods of communication i.e. social networking.
Why You Should Avoid Using MSNIM is trying to become more open, but is Windows Live Messenger falling behind?
on Wed 11 Feb 2009 (22:40 GMT) (990 views)
on Wed 11 Feb 2009 (22:40 GMT) (990 views)
One can infer there has been a social revolution in terms of communication within the past couple of decades. One Computer Science professor I recently met compared the growth of the Internet to something as significant as the printing press. Emails created a new wave of productivity and when they became instant messages, the Internet became more responsive, while the introduction of websites such as Facebook have made the web more social. Has the social networking revolution damaged instant messaging? There is evidence to suggest this may be true. How are the IM giants reacting? TechCrunch argues not very much.
The article examines how recent integration is only a piecemeal solution, with no efficient, direct change being achieved. The argument is that Microsoft and Yahoo! should open up their IM clients and be able to talk to everyone. I highly recommend reading the full article.
As IM Finally Begins To Open Up, Yahoo And Microsoft Cling To The Stone Age
Historically, IM has existed on closed and proprietary systems, with dedicated clients that can only connect to a single network. For many years users with accounts on multiple networks (say, AOL and MSN), would have to keep multiple programs open, which ate up system resources and cluttered desktops. By 2000 a handful of clients emerged that would allow users to manage multiple IM accounts from a single program. These stayed largely under the radar until 2002, when a client called Trillian hit 1 million downloads (and then jumped to 5 million six months later).
IM is also ripe for innovation, but developers have been hampered by a near-complete lack of cooperation from the major IM networks. Perhaps developers will take advantage of the growing number of networks that are open, adding new features that make them attractive to users still stuck on the old behemoths. Then Yahoo and Microsoft might be compelled to finally change - or perish.
The article examines how recent integration is only a piecemeal solution, with no efficient, direct change being achieved. The argument is that Microsoft and Yahoo! should open up their IM clients and be able to talk to everyone. I highly recommend reading the full article.
As IM Finally Begins To Open Up, Yahoo And Microsoft Cling To The Stone AgeSpam. We all get it. Hundreds of emails sent to you every day, poorly written just like this post. They attempt to sell, scam, pester or advertise to you in the most ludicrous ways! Spam has been around for years and has taken over our email inboxes. Quiet honestly it's something I hate, yet don't find interfering. This is because our email clients have been smart enough to detect spam and block irrelevant emails for years now. SPIM, on the other hand, is less frequent but a much more major annoyance.
Messaging spam, as it is also known, targets instant messenger users from usernames it expects to be using a specific service. Bots will then attempt to add you, mimicking as new contacts. Once added them will target ads towards your interests, based on the information where it discovered your email address. Of course they are persistent, and difficult to spot.
The problem has been exacerbated by the increase in Messenger bots, and how easy they are to create and distribute. Over the past few weeks, I've seen several forums posts with people claiming several SPIM bots have added them to Messenger. the andyman himself has had 23 bots add him in the space of 3 days.
Luckily Microsoft have already created a solution, implemented in the new Windows Live Messenger 9. Although the feature is still incomplete, and the version still not publicly available, it is only a matter of time before SPIM bots spread to a wider market. Remember to protect yourself, don't post your IM address or username in a public forum or website, where bots are likely to pick it up.
Messaging spam, as it is also known, targets instant messenger users from usernames it expects to be using a specific service. Bots will then attempt to add you, mimicking as new contacts. Once added them will target ads towards your interests, based on the information where it discovered your email address. Of course they are persistent, and difficult to spot.
The problem has been exacerbated by the increase in Messenger bots, and how easy they are to create and distribute. Over the past few weeks, I've seen several forums posts with people claiming several SPIM bots have added them to Messenger. the andyman himself has had 23 bots add him in the space of 3 days.
Luckily Microsoft have already created a solution, implemented in the new Windows Live Messenger 9. Although the feature is still incomplete, and the version still not publicly available, it is only a matter of time before SPIM bots spread to a wider market. Remember to protect yourself, don't post your IM address or username in a public forum or website, where bots are likely to pick it up.
The way we connect to each other can be very interesting, or very boring and totally illrelevant. But however you look upon it, this post will provide some interesting statistics. Based on data from EQO's IM interconnect, we can see just how each major country/ continent uses instant messaging, and the percentage each client has of the market.
MSN/ Windows Live Messenger ranks top in the UK, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. It is the 3rd most popular client in the US, after AIM and Yahoo! Messenger respectively. You can see a breakdown of all the results, plus a world map showing which IM client is the most popular in each country.
Despite the fact MSN/ Windows Live Messenger did not come top in every country on the list, it ranks well everywhere, showing a wide user base. In fact its lowest ranking was in the Russia and Saudi Arabia, with just over 10% of the market share.
Source: Global Instant Messaging Market Share - Open Data
View the PDF containing all the data
MSN/ Windows Live Messenger ranks top in the UK, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. It is the 3rd most popular client in the US, after AIM and Yahoo! Messenger respectively. You can see a breakdown of all the results, plus a world map showing which IM client is the most popular in each country.
Despite the fact MSN/ Windows Live Messenger did not come top in every country on the list, it ranks well everywhere, showing a wide user base. In fact its lowest ranking was in the Russia and Saudi Arabia, with just over 10% of the market share.
Source: Global Instant Messaging Market Share - Open Data View the PDF containing all the dataThere is no doubt websites such as MySpace and Facebook have become popular extremely fast. People connect to friends and make new ones to keep track with what their doing in their lives, through more accessible means. But has the increased use in social networking had a negative effect on instant messaging?
For me, yes. I no longer use Windows Live Messenger daily, nor do I spend much time on it at all. I've noticed my friends have adopted the same approach, they prefer to check out new photos and comments on Facebook rather than logging in and waiting to chat to friends. Then again, I have been more busy in recent times, and I spend less time on my computer altogether.
To top things off, Facebook have now get their own instant messaging system usable from every page within the website. It is convenient and easy to use, but I never use it. So have you noticed yourself using Messenger less and social networking more?
Source: mess.be - "Facebook catches up with Windows Live Messenger in UK"
For me, yes. I no longer use Windows Live Messenger daily, nor do I spend much time on it at all. I've noticed my friends have adopted the same approach, they prefer to check out new photos and comments on Facebook rather than logging in and waiting to chat to friends. Then again, I have been more busy in recent times, and I spend less time on my computer altogether.
According to Nielsen Online, the time British web users spent using MSN/Windows Live Messenger in April 2008 matched the number of minutes spent on Facebook: 2.4 billion. While that's a whopping increase for Facebook (coming from 500 million in April 2007), it's a considerable loss for Messenger that still accounted for 3.2 billion minutes in the same month last year.
Alex Burmaster, internet analyst at Nielsen Online, defines it as a relatively rapid "seismic shift" from Instant Messaging to communication through social networks. IM in general appears to be over the hill (total minutes were down from 3.9 billion to 2.9 billion) and clearly losing ground to social networking (minutes up from 2.4 billion to 3.7 billion).
To top things off, Facebook have now get their own instant messaging system usable from every page within the website. It is convenient and easy to use, but I never use it. So have you noticed yourself using Messenger less and social networking more?
Source: mess.be - "Facebook catches up with Windows Live Messenger in UK"It's not that often that we have an opportunity to promote different IM programs, but I'm proud to announce that Digsby has finally reached public beta phase.
What is Digsby? Disgsby is an instant messaging, email, and social networking client all in one. It's sort of like Trillian, but far better in my honest opinion. Digsby allows you to add AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber Accounts into one major contact list. Not only that, Digsby allows you to keep up with your MySpace or Facebook accounts by alerting you when you receive new messages, comments, etc etc. It gets better, believe me. Here's the complete feature list:
Instant Messaging
One combined buddy list for all your AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber Accounts.
Manage multiple conversations with tabbed conversation windows. You can drag tabs out into their own windows for important conversations.
Rename contacts with an alias so you don't have to remember buddy names like 'giantsfan123'.
If one of your friends has more than one IM account you can combine them into a single merged contact to eliminate duplicate buddies.
Send your friends SMS messages right from the IM window.
The InfoBox lets you check everyone's status message and profile just by moving your mouse down the list.
Changing your status has never been easier. just one click right on the buddy list!
Multitask while you chat. Minimize the IM window and you see popups of new IM's. Best of all, you can reply right from the popup and get back to what you were doing.
Log conversation history and find the information you need our search-enabled log viewer.
And so much more.
Email
Manage your Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP accounts right from digsby.
Get popup notifications when new email arrives. Clicking a popup takes you right to the message with auto-login into webmail accounts.
The email InfoBox gives you a snapshot of your unread messages with just one click
Perform actions such as "Mark as Read" or "Report Spam" right from the email InfoBox.
Send emails to your friends right from the IM window. The email is sent directly from any account digsby is tracking for you.
Social Networking
Stay up to date with everything happening on your Facebook or MySpace account (other network support coming soon).
Receive alerts of events such as new friend requests, messages, group invites, etc.
The social network InfoBox gives you a real time NewsFeed of what your friends are up to. Everything from new photos, to status updates, to upcoming birthdays is just a click away.
Personalize
Customize digsby with application skins to give it a personal look and feel.
Change the way your conversations look with themes – everything from simple AIM-style windows to 3D conversation bubbles.
Complete control over the layout of buddies on the buddy list. Change everything from buddy icon size to whether or not to show a snippet of their away message.
Sort your buddy list how ever you want! You can organize buddies manually, by status, by service, by name or by log size to place those you communicate with most at the top. You can even choose a secondary sorting method.
Customizable notification system lets you choose what events you want to be alerted about and how.
Other
Digsby offers complete synchronization between computers and installations. Everything from the skin you chose to your pre-defined status messages follows you from place to place.
You can place a widget on your blog, website, or social network profile so you can chat with visitors right from digsby.
Manage multiple simultaneous file transfers from one simple transfer manager.
Digsby entered private beta phase about 6 weeks ago, and since then has released 15 builds (Which had 35 major changes), 53 added enhancements, and 109 bug fixes. I can honestly say that the team behind Digsby is one of the best product teams I've seen. The only problem that user's are reporting is that Digsby uses a lot of RAM, but if you think about it, if you're using all of this super-client's features, it's going to take some RAM to keep it runnin'.
We're going to keep you posted on the development of this project!
Link: Digsby's Home Page
View: Screenshots
View: Digsby's Developer Blog
Download: The latest public release of Digsby
What is Digsby? Disgsby is an instant messaging, email, and social networking client all in one. It's sort of like Trillian, but far better in my honest opinion. Digsby allows you to add AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber Accounts into one major contact list. Not only that, Digsby allows you to keep up with your MySpace or Facebook accounts by alerting you when you receive new messages, comments, etc etc. It gets better, believe me. Here's the complete feature list:
Instant Messaging
One combined buddy list for all your AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber Accounts.
Manage multiple conversations with tabbed conversation windows. You can drag tabs out into their own windows for important conversations.
Rename contacts with an alias so you don't have to remember buddy names like 'giantsfan123'.
If one of your friends has more than one IM account you can combine them into a single merged contact to eliminate duplicate buddies.
Send your friends SMS messages right from the IM window.
The InfoBox lets you check everyone's status message and profile just by moving your mouse down the list.
Changing your status has never been easier. just one click right on the buddy list!
Multitask while you chat. Minimize the IM window and you see popups of new IM's. Best of all, you can reply right from the popup and get back to what you were doing.
Log conversation history and find the information you need our search-enabled log viewer.
And so much more.
Manage your Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP accounts right from digsby.
Get popup notifications when new email arrives. Clicking a popup takes you right to the message with auto-login into webmail accounts.
The email InfoBox gives you a snapshot of your unread messages with just one click
Perform actions such as "Mark as Read" or "Report Spam" right from the email InfoBox.
Send emails to your friends right from the IM window. The email is sent directly from any account digsby is tracking for you.
Social Networking
Stay up to date with everything happening on your Facebook or MySpace account (other network support coming soon).
Receive alerts of events such as new friend requests, messages, group invites, etc.
The social network InfoBox gives you a real time NewsFeed of what your friends are up to. Everything from new photos, to status updates, to upcoming birthdays is just a click away.
Personalize
Customize digsby with application skins to give it a personal look and feel.
Change the way your conversations look with themes – everything from simple AIM-style windows to 3D conversation bubbles.
Complete control over the layout of buddies on the buddy list. Change everything from buddy icon size to whether or not to show a snippet of their away message.
Sort your buddy list how ever you want! You can organize buddies manually, by status, by service, by name or by log size to place those you communicate with most at the top. You can even choose a secondary sorting method.
Customizable notification system lets you choose what events you want to be alerted about and how.
Other
Digsby offers complete synchronization between computers and installations. Everything from the skin you chose to your pre-defined status messages follows you from place to place.
You can place a widget on your blog, website, or social network profile so you can chat with visitors right from digsby.
Manage multiple simultaneous file transfers from one simple transfer manager.
Digsby entered private beta phase about 6 weeks ago, and since then has released 15 builds (Which had 35 major changes), 53 added enhancements, and 109 bug fixes. I can honestly say that the team behind Digsby is one of the best product teams I've seen. The only problem that user's are reporting is that Digsby uses a lot of RAM, but if you think about it, if you're using all of this super-client's features, it's going to take some RAM to keep it runnin'.
We're going to keep you posted on the development of this project!
Link: Digsby's Home Page
View: Screenshots
View: Digsby's Developer Blog
Download: The latest public release of Digsby
You may be thinking that the title to this post may be a little odd, but interesting nonetheless. The statistic is not due to errors within IM servers or your Internet connection turning off and on, this is something much more logical.
Have you ever started typing a message, before thinking 'I best not send that', or 'How am I going to phase this'? Have you forgot you were typing a message and became distracted? Michael Beißwenger's research suggests these are reasons for his statistic and the cause of why 1/5 of our messages are never sent.
The interesting thing is that this research has shown the same things happens when we are face to face with individuals, suggesting we forget what we are going to say next. I know for a fact I do this all the time, and I'm sure you do too:
What do you think of this? I know I do not send messages I have typed on occasion, but this is not a habit of mine. I find my previous message a cue for what I want to say next.
Source: News Scientist technology blog
Have you ever started typing a message, before thinking 'I best not send that', or 'How am I going to phase this'? Have you forgot you were typing a message and became distracted? Michael Beißwenger's research suggests these are reasons for his statistic and the cause of why 1/5 of our messages are never sent.
The interesting thing is that this research has shown the same things happens when we are face to face with individuals, suggesting we forget what we are going to say next. I know for a fact I do this all the time, and I'm sure you do too:
During normal conversation we pre-formulate sentences that are later revised or scrapped for the same reasons all the time. It's just the way humans work. If you could estimate how often that happens, I wonder if the result be similar to the 20% figure for IM?
What do you think of this? I know I do not send messages I have typed on occasion, but this is not a habit of mine. I find my previous message a cue for what I want to say next.
Source: News Scientist technology blogUnless you have been hiding under a rock the past month and a half you will know it is the holiday season (I'm tempted to say Christmas, but I'm staying culturally neutral). As you can imagine Microsoft's own Santa bot for Messenger (asksanta@live.ca/ northpole@live.com) is very popular this time of year and some people have found odd ways to make Santa say some rather disturbing things:
This isn't really news, but if your bored maybe you too can get chatting to Santa about your wildest fantasies.
Source: mess.be
View a screenshot of the bot in action
El Reg says: pizza (pi)
Santa says: Yum! What do you want for Christmas, El Reg?
El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat so much! You are quite large!
Santa says: My elves will get right on that. And what else are you wishing for this year, El Reg?
El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat it?
Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!
El Reg says: Eat it
Santa says: No thank you. I don't eat things!
El Reg says: Eat it
Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!
El Reg says: Eat it
Santa says: You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else...
El Reg says: You dirty bastard!
Santa says: I think you're dirty bastard.
More questionable replies as reported by other readers:
'cake' or 'snow' -> 'You don't need drugs when you're high on life!'
'you are high' -> 'I like being high!'
'have you slept with Paris Hilton?' -> 'Not yet, but I hope to sometime.'
'crack is awesome' -> 'Crack sure is.'
This isn't really news, but if your bored maybe you too can get chatting to Santa about your wildest fantasies.
Source: mess.be View a screenshot of the bot in actionWe're taking part in the first Blog Action Day, a day to blog about an issue to try and make a difference. This year the subject is how to save the environment and what better way to save trees and paper than to use instant messaging at work.
Cut down on post-it notes, letters and internal memos by using email, IM and even VoIP in your workplace, or go a step further and cut down on travel pollution as well by working from home and using the internet to communicate seamlessly with your office. It could even save you and your company money in the long run.
One of the best tools for workplace instant messaging and collaboration is Microsoft Office Communicator. The latest version, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 (aka OC), launches this Tuesday 16th October along with the server software it runs on, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (aka OCS).
Communicator 2007 has many advantages over Windows Live Messenger in a workplace environment. Some of these include:
And as Communicator comes in versions for the desktop, browser and Windows Mobile it means that you can access your office and work from almost anywhere and whilst on the move (and without needing a VPN).
I really feel that Office Communicator can be a revolution in business communications. Although it is hard to grasp how it is so different and better from previous offerings without trying it out for yourself, I can easily see this impressive product in offices all of the world in the near future.
Find out more about:
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007
Microsoft Office Communicator 2007
Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007
Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access 2007
... the rest of Microsoft's Unified Communications products
Reviews of OC and OCS
Microsoft press release: Unified Communications vision
Cut down on post-it notes, letters and internal memos by using email, IM and even VoIP in your workplace, or go a step further and cut down on travel pollution as well by working from home and using the internet to communicate seamlessly with your office. It could even save you and your company money in the long run.
One of the best tools for workplace instant messaging and collaboration is Microsoft Office Communicator. The latest version, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 (aka OC), launches this Tuesday 16th October along with the server software it runs on, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (aka OCS).
Communicator 2007 has many advantages over Windows Live Messenger in a workplace environment. Some of these include:
- Integration with Microsoft Office programs like Outlook (including the calendar) and business products like SharePoint
- Better security features (including message encryption and server-side logging)
- Advanced contact features (including presence information here, there and everywhere)
- Interoperability with Windows Live, Yahoo! and AOL messengers
- No ads (and a less bloated and cleaner UI in general)
- Support for phones (including call diversion and voicemail)
- Document collaboration features (including OneNote and Live Meeting)
- Multi-user video conferencing
And as Communicator comes in versions for the desktop, browser and Windows Mobile it means that you can access your office and work from almost anywhere and whilst on the move (and without needing a VPN).
I really feel that Office Communicator can be a revolution in business communications. Although it is hard to grasp how it is so different and better from previous offerings without trying it out for yourself, I can easily see this impressive product in offices all of the world in the near future.
Find out more about:
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access 2007 ... the rest of Microsoft's Unified Communications products Reviews of OC and OCS Microsoft press release: Unified Communications visionPage: 12
Messenger Stuff
