August 09, 2006
Meebo Meet My VoIPpleganger
A couple of early Friday mornings ago, something strange happened to me, just before I went to bed. Skype messaged me saying someone wanted to add me to their buddy list. Okay, that's not strange, but the person had the same initials and last name as me. Had I pressed some strange combo of ALT-keys? No, this was a real person, and they lived half-way across the world. Some sort of VoIP doppleganger - a VoIPpleganger, maybe?
Then, after a few hours of sleep, I'd barely un-hibernated my laptop when someone from the Ukraine IMed me via the Gaim text IM client, on my AIM/ICQ account. Gaim was running for one business contact, Google Talk for another, and Skype was running for the free SkypeOut within Canada and the US. Gizmo Project wasn't running, and I hadn't installed Yahoo! Messenger 8 yet. And I'd just shut down the Trillian IM client because Gaim could manage the same accounts.
The moral of the story? Arrrrrrggggghhhhh. My laptop's RAM is always maxxed out because of all these damned text/ VoIP IM clients running for different biz contacts. Are you going crazy trying, too, trying to manage a handful of software clients?
Fortunately, a number of companies are making an effort to either be compatible with other IM clients, or at least be a bridge. We've already covered a few. For example, the newest Yahoo and MSN Messengers are compatible, and Festoon Unity tries to bridge Skype + Google Talk.
Well here's another one, which bridges four different IMs. And you don't have to download anything: Meebo. Meebo, which is AJAX-powered, works in your web browser, sort of like a virtual desktop. It bridges AIM/ICQ, Jabber/ Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger IM accounts. You get little dialog windows that you can move around, and all of your contacts from all of your above-mentioned accounts sit in one handy little window, with different icons to differentiate their source IM.
Meebo Me is a separate web-based service which lets you place a chat box/ shout box on a website/ weblog, and probably aimed at the various social networks. I haven't tried it because I already have an abundance of shoutboxes on my sites.
Meebo itself doesn't handle VoIP, nor Skype or Gizmo Project clients to my knowledge. But maybe all that's coming. Although it is convenient, easy-to-use, and a good start to IM network compatibility. Enough said; go give it a try.
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