IM

The Next Step Should Be An Open Specification

July 13, 2006

Without diminishing the importance of yesterday’s announcement by Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) that their IM clouds now interoperate, none of us should be hailing this as anything more than it actually is — two underdogs teaming up to try to beat the incumbent (in this case, AOL).  Neither Yahoo, nor Microsoft, despite the positioning, [...]

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Skype 2.5 Beta: Nice to Have

May 3, 2006

Skype 2.5 beta was quietly released last night.  Aside from Rich Tehrani, and Andy Abramson, nobody seems to have noticed. I’ve been playing with the new beta this morning, and while many of the changes are appreciated, they mostly fall into the category of ease-of-use and fit-and-finish.  If I were the product manager for this release, I’d describe [...]

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GMail and Hotmail Do Presence

February 18, 2006

I was working away this morning when my GTalk popped.  It was Jeff, trying out a new feature of GMail. 8:09 AM jeff.pulver: are you also using gmail 8:10 AM me: try not to. Have too many email addresses  jeff.pulver: i am chatting via gmail right now  me: from within gmail?  jeff.pulver: from inside gmail – while [...]

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CES Panel Recap

January 8, 2006

It’s been a while coming, but here are my thoughts on the CES panel on IM, mobility and VoIP which I chaired January 4th.  The panelists included Microsoft’s Anupam Gupta, Earthlink’s Thomas Hsieh, and Yahoo’s Jeff Bonforte.  I had a pre-prepared set of questions, some of which got used, but the audience was also very [...]

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Balz Wyss: It’s all about me

January 4, 2006

I watched Balz Wyss’ presentation on Microsoft’s VoIP platform play this morning.  Very good stuff.  He started with the same video that Anoop Gupta used at an earlier presentation I saw this fall.  It’s a very clever video showing the impact of a manager being stranded at an airport, and how this person uses presence [...]

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Panel Questions

January 2, 2006

Here are the questions I’ve gathered up for my panel on Mobility and Instant Messaging at CES on Wednesday.  If you’ve got suggestions for other questions, please drop me an email, or post them in the comments section of this message.  We’ll have representatives from AOL, MSN, Earthlink and Yahoo on hand to answer them.  [...]

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Call for questions

January 1, 2006

I’ll be moderating the IM and Mobility panel at Pulver’s CES Consumer VoIP Summit on Wednesday.  We’ve got a great line-up, including representatives from AOL, Earthlink, MSN and Yahoo!.  The panel will be one hour and fifteen minutes long.  Format wise, each participant will be allowed a maximum of five minutes to tell us a [...]

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Consumer VoIP Summit: Instant Messaging and Mobility

December 16, 2005

I’ve been asked to chair the Instant Messaging and Mobility panel at Pulver’s Consumer VoIP Summit in Las Vegas.  It’s happening on January 4, during the Consumer Electronics Show. So far we have speakers from AOL, Yahoo, and Earthlink. I think a speaker from Google or Microsoft would really round out the mix, don’t you?  [...]

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Skype Store and Forward IM: The Worst of Both Worlds

December 11, 2005

Andy Abramson mentioned a phenomenon I’ve noticed many times with Skype: IM sometimes shows up much later than sent.    Specifically, if you IM someone who isn’t online, Skype somehow stores that up, and sends it later.  At first, this looked like a great feature to me – a hybrid between IM and email.  It seemed be exactly [...]

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Dumping IM

November 14, 2005

In Giving up on Instant Messaging, long time Instant Messaging user Luis Suarez notices that his IM usage has shifted from AOL, Yahoo, MSN to Skype, Google Talk, and Damaka.   I’ve noticed the same.  I rarely message people on MSN Messenger anymore, but choose Skype or Gizmo Project instead. 

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