Instant Messagnig: The Next Generation and Beyond

 

Holy opening the floodgates batman!  Microsoft open the doors to extensability of its Instant Messenging product, MSN Messenger last week when it made public the "Activity SDK" – a class library that allows for public appliaction offerings within the chat system framework. Yes, I’m only getting to write about it now because I’ve been busy, which is a shame because it’s pretty exciting stuff and it wasn’t the only big announcement in the world of IM lately.  Yahoo! Messenger has not only started offering VoIP following a column of other vendors (Google, Microsoft, and Skype to name a few) but also offered for free something Skype tot his point has charged money for: you can voice message a Yahoo! Messenger client and if the party isn’t around leave them voicemail just as you would if it were a phone call being made!!!

 

Yes the race to be "King of IM" is certainly getting heated.  But as if to get out of the frying pan and into the core of the Sun, Microsoft announced it was buying significant stake (a la partial merger) with America On-Line (AOL), which is the largest ISP in the United States and a giant in the Internet/E-Commerce/Technology spheres in its own right; practically a household name (or acronym at least).

 

It’s certainly been quite a week – and a lot more on these developemnts will doubtlessly follow here in the days ahead….