on Sat 26 Apr 2008 (14:13 GMT) (1488 views)
TheBlasphemer has now posted some new news after five months and hearing nothing:
We haven't really been working on Web2Messenger for quite a while now, but it's been silently running in the background doing what it's supposed to do. The only real problem was that changing your passport or signing up wouldn't work, as the add-user routine in the bots were broken. Initially I've just wanted to keep Web2Messenger running as both Andrew and I find it quite useful, but as people kept on bugging me about the aforementioned bug, I took some time yesterday to try and fix it. For now it seems fixed, and in case it fails again I've added some event logging that should alert me to the exact place it's failing so I can pinpoint the problem easily.
Now, we aren't opening up Web2Messenger to the grand public yet, but I did drop off a few invites to a forum and a news site to generate some new buzz around it. Reason being both that I'd like to see my bugfix tested, and that I'd like to get some feedback on things. Web2Messenger in it's current form has no real future. We're currently running into our maximum capacity, but making no real profit. We would like to add an extra server (think roughly 200$ per month), but we're simply unable to afford it. We're hoping someone might have a good idea or opportunity to get some proper advertising income so we could put some more time into W2M. So, if you have any ideas about how to generate some income, or have an idea for a sponsoring deal or something, please do not hesitate to reply to this forum thread or use the contact form.
So it sounds like the service just isn't profitable for these busy workers. The developers now have other things going on in their lives and bills to pay. Let's hope the service can be maximized or even sold to someone who can exploit Web2Messenger to its full potential.
Invites:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Source: Web2Messenger official forums
Although new registrations are currently disabled all previous users should now have full access to the site and a fully reliable bot. However it is worth noting that the service is still labelled as "beta" so while everything should run smoothly there could be some occasional bugs.
Also, status images are currently unavailable (without using a service such as MSIG) so you'll have to use/parse the .txt .xml or .b64 information yourself.
Visit the Web2Messenger homepage Read the official "resurrection" announcement Find out how to get your status information Get a status image from MSIGAfter having to "close down" because of the downtime on the servers caused by the heavy use of the bots it would appear that it is being worked on again.
For the first time in ages one of the bots is online on my contact list and its PSM is "Latest news: Back Online!", however the whole Web2Messenger website, including their forums, is now down and completely inaccessible.
So does this mean that Web2Messenger is coming back? Well this has happened once before, towards the end of last year, although similar problems arose and the bots and site were taken offline again. Then earlier this year the developers of Web2Messenger, TheBlasphemer (TB) and Aziraphale, said that they had given up on it.
With TB working on StuffPlug 3 it would appear that he does not have enough time to totally rewrite Web2Messenger, which is what is apparently required, although with this latest development do bear in mind what he said back in April ...
Apart from that [having no time] I feel there is no challenge behind coding a new Web2Messenger Bot Platform.
Edit: the Web2Messenger bot on my contact list is occasionally signing out and them signing back in again with varying amounts of time between, suggesting that the connection problems the bots had before are still occurring or that they are still being worked on and tweaked.
There's a forum thread there, not in the news section, but in the general section that has a post from two of Web2Messenger developers: TheBlasphemer (TB) and Aziraphale. Basically, these posts completely kill the hope that many of you may have.
TB stated the following:
Alright, here's the deal. With the current architecture, the bots time-out because the SQL queries for keeping track of user status and messages and the likes just take too long. Fixing this would mean totally rewriting it, as we'd have to create a totally different architecture. Andrew doesn't have enough C/C++ experience to do this, and I don't have the time, nor do I feel that I could justify the time spent on it.
[...]
Apart from that I feel there is no challenge behind coding a new Web2Messenger Bot Platform.
This means he is still as busy as always, and that he would rather spend time doing something new like StuffPlug rather than rebuilding something to do the same thing.
As for Aziraphale, he said that when he and TB originally built the system, it was not meant for such large scale use. They didn't expect so many users, and because of this were unable to prepare a system ready for it.
So it seems Web2Messenger is gone forever. We can always hope, but chances are really slim that such a quality service will come back in the years to come. There is, however, another website which provides similar services.
Official Web2Messenger website The forum thread with the coders' posts WebDP: An alternative serviceThe site and forums are back online after being moved to a new server, however the bots are having trouble. They were working initially but are now having problems staying online. What will become of the service is yet to be seen.
Web2Messenger News post by AziraphaleNevertheless we don't know if the same old problems will come back and haunt the service. It seems like it has died, with everyone losing interest. I'm sure it will return with a twist of some kind though.
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