AOL IM Rival Pulls The Plug 137
A reader writes: "719software.com has an interesting story about TribalVoice who was probably the only real threat to AOL in the instant messenger field, since AOL's acquisition of ICQ. David fought Goliath and lost. Now the only one left fighting AOL over IM, is Microsoft. How ironic." There's actually more then just Pow Wow left - Jabber comes to mind, but the field has definitely narrowed over the last few years.
Re:Tribal Voice a THREAT? Hah! (Score:1)
And abusive of net resources to boot.
I do on-demand dialup so I can process mail automatically. Normally, this means a 5 minute call when my system demands a connection and then it times out when the mail is done.
I came home one night to find my connection still up, more than 8 hours since the last scheduled mail transfer. Short version of story: some moron had registered a dialup IP address as their PowWow address, and their buddy's PowWow client had been trying to connect to his buddy's system every 20 seconds for the whole 8 hours. And this nonsense kept happening for several weeks.
Tribal couldn't understand why this might be a problem and they would do nothing to help find either the misregistered flubby or his buddy, nor would they provide enough protocol data so I could write a "shut the fuck up and go away" demon.
Of course, WebRamp is not blameless in this -- their marvelous product counted incoming PowWow packets as valid data even when all it did was throw them away as undeliverable. WebRamp couldn't understand why this was a problem, "just shut the modem off when you are done", they told me.
Even webservers that are trying to keep the previous caller's connection alive eventually back off and let the connection time out, but PowWow was never that smart. They'd have been filtered at the network routers were they my routers.
Re:Something I don't get.. (Score:2)
Why IM is 'better' than IRC (Score:4)
Now certainly there are much better things about IRC than IM, IMO, but most are related to the stability and scalability of the system. In addition, there's some privacy concerns, given that with IM, all your information and messages are going through a central server. And there are some things that IM can do that IRC can't, and vice versa. But from John Q. Public, those 'important' features are in IM, and not IRC.
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:2)
Re:And Yahoo!... (Score:2)
Re:use which one? (Score:2)
MessengerA2Z (Score:2)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/messengera2z [sourceforge.net]
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:2)
Wait, what about DiversiDial? (Score:1)
--
Why should we care? (Score:2)
Maybe I'm old fashioned about it, but I figure IRC is a better way of doing this stuff, but then I also don't like IRC that much. Like MUDs and other things, they steal a lot of time. IRC, MUD and IM are the sitcoms of the internet.
And Yahoo!... (Score:2)
Re:Something I don't get.. (Score:1)
Then they tried again, and again, and again. Each time, AOL blocked [wired.com] them. They've proven that they can tell the difference [securiteam.com] between clones and their official client. I don't know why AOL doesn't do the same thing to the linux clones. But don't say Microsoft hasn't tried, because they have.
Don't forget Yahoo Messenger (Score:1)
Something I don't get.. (Score:4)
Yet there are tons of free/open software clients working flawlessly. If we can figure it out, why can't they? Are they more vulnerable to legal action from AOL regarding reverse engineering?
Re:Anyone else tried Odigo? (Score:1)
Re:Why should we care? (Score:3)
IRC *was* a great chat system in the past. I still use it at times but honestly most people aren't willing to learn it, the lag is horrible at times, all the netsplits suck, and the recent DOS attacks make it less alluring than it used to be.
AIM has made phone calls pretty much worthless in college. When you are asking someone if they are going out it is a lot less work to double click their name and type the message than have to wait for the rings, the answer, and possibly the answering service of choice...
IMHO there is no real threat to AOL. I used to use ICQ but became annoyed by the constant barage of porn spam. IRC sucks because of the above. AIM has integrated file sending, group chat, and everything that ICQ, or IRC has...
Yes, this is all a matter of opinion on my part, but I really feel that AIM has changed the way that the Internet chat world is... I walk through the dorms and see MANY MANY people chatting away w/tons of people at the same time (not just people that know how to use ICQ or IRC).
Just my worthless
Re:But where are the public servers? (Score:2)
Tribal Voice a THREAT? Hah! (Score:5)
They had more active users than MSN and Yahoo instant messaging in the end? I find that hard to believe. This is like saying Vivo is still a "threat" to RealPlayer and MS Media Player, or that the Amiga is a "threat" to anything.
Like many CMGI acquisitions, TribalVoice was a cheap, third-rate product snapped up at a fire-sale price from yet another owner that couldn't make it fly.
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:2)
Hate to say it but... (Score:2)
Pow wow was compatible with AIM, not competitors (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:And Yahoo!... (Score:1)
Don't like marketing hype, try Jabber.ORG (Score:2)
Re:[Kinda OT] Jabber... (Score:1)
The IETF is working on open standard protocols for (Score:1)
The working group charter is here [ietf.org], and there is additional information about protocol candidates available here [imppwg.org].
The open source community needs to get with the program, read the RFC's and the Internet Drafts, and start coding.
Before it's too late.
Re:Something I don't get.. (Score:2)
IRC AIM ICQ MSN (Score:1)
Dissenter
Sofunky (Score:1)
Re:MINE! MINE! (Score:2)
Unfortunately, there is nobody to come in and make them "share".
Why the hell should AOL share? They spent the money to develop the service and view it as a differentiation to sell their services. Its their servers and they should have the right to tell other people who want to use them to go screw themselves.
You can bet if IM had failed, all of AOL's competitors wouldn't be falling over themselves to help AOL pay for their failure....
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:3)
There are probably quite a few reasons for this . . . the one that comes to mind first is the fact that instant messengers are somewhat more user-friendly than IRC. Extra features, such as voice or graphical smileys could also be a reason.
Expanding on the user friendly thread, registered screen names/nicks could be an issue as well. Granted there are services on some of the IRC networks but they're not simple point and click deals. You have to learn the commands, which are often beyond the grasp of regular Windows users. And dialup users can forget having a 24/7 connection, or perhaps eggdrops to keep their nicks on networks that don't have nick services.
Yet another reason could be the sheer number of IRC networks. I usually have 2 irc clients open so I can be on two networks simultaneously, to stay in touch with different groups of people. (Admittedly, I know of people who run 2 or more IM clients as well.)
And perhaps the biggest reason is AOL itself. Every subscriber they have is automatically an IM user, and if you want to converse in real time with AOL users, IM is the easiest way to do so. AOL users have no real reason to go and learn IRC, when most of the people they want to chat with have accepted, and use, AOL's defacto standard.
[Kinda OT] Jabber... (Score:4)
Do people out there actually use it, and if so, what's so great about it? Or is this just GNU/FUD?
--------------------------
Re:And Yahoo!... (Score:2)
Anyway, Yahoo Messenger is pretty big, isn't it? I and a multitude of my friends use it. In fact, I don't know anyone who uses AIM...
But where are the public servers? (Score:1)
//Pingo
Re:Regarding Jabber (Score:1)
Also (Score:2)
BazIRC (Score:1)
Its not what it is, its something else.
Re:Regarding Jabber (Score:1)
It is the same as saying, "I _think_ this is correct, but I may be wrong," which is a perfectly reasonable statement if one is slightly insecure as to the varacity of the details he or she is imparting. Liability is moot, as the gentleman/woman in question was only volunteering his/her understanding of a situation, without obligation for 100% accuracy to you, me, or anyone else on Slashdot. At least he/she was polite enough to indicate that his/her facts may have been in error.
Re:Regarding Jabber (Score:1)
There is absolutely nothing about the "to my knowledge" disclaimer that qualifies it as a troll.
You quote another issue entirely, which, yes, might be perceived as "trollish."
:-)
IRC Instant Messenger for BeOS (Score:1)
Has
Re:What about an IM that was based on IRC? (Score:1)
Has
Re:IRC AIM ICQ MSN (Score:1)
I got fed up with ICQ because it is turning into serious bloatware - 8Mb in RAM and growing. Even MS's offering was smaller than that! Miranda ICQ weighs in at only 450Kb, but lacks too much functionality yet to be a real replacement.
Re:Regarding Jabber (Score:1)
Re:Where is the revenue created by IM programs? (Score:1)
Work? (Score:2)
sure, we also use email and newsservers, but unlike these asynchronous-type mediums, chat proggys are synchronous (or at least more so than email.) when i pop a question to a mate, i usually get a prompt response...whether i am asking him for the next round of foosball or if the SQL server is up.
just b/c you don't see a use for it, don't think that it isn't useful to others. i am very happy in my open environment now where i have email and AIM, as opposed to the corporate hell-hole i worked for previously who wouldn't let us run AIM at all....
it's like everything else a tool!
Re:And Yahoo!... (Score:1)
broadcast? (Score:1)
Hello People! (Score:1)
[odigo.com]
Odigo Homepage
rhino
Re:Why use IRC? (Score:1)
Hey, now... I agree with the diff. progs for diff. things. I use IRC all the time, but at work, or when I need to quickly poke my head into someones proverbial office, I send an IM, usually using Yahoo Messenger (which, I'm surprised wasn't mentioned.)
There is def. something to be said for the small footprint, one-click-startup-and-sign-on features of the progs. that are out there. I don't think it's a matter of 1337-nees, it's just convenience... and I didn't even need to condescend to anyone.
Re:Why should we care? (Score:1)
--
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:1)
Look at the popularity of GAIM for Linux, it's better then the windows client and widely used by *nix people. Hell, I used it on my solaris box at my old job.
--
Re:Where is the revenue created by IM programs? (Score:1)
I know ICQ sells a copy of their server for inter-office use, but I can't see that market being very large. They have to pull a profit from somewhere..
--
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:3)
Also, at work, my boss HATES people to be on IRC, but for AIM/ICQ they don't really care, in fact we use ICQ for inter-office stuff all the time.
--
Re:And Yahoo!... (Score:1)
Yahoo Messenger has both a Java and a pure Linux client.
Except both the Java and the native Linux client (which is closed source, buggy and hasn't been updated since August) are rubbish.
If you're using Yahoo! Messenger under Linux I would throughly recommend switching to GAIM [marko.net].
Ironically this might be a good thing. (Score:1)
-----
For a stable, well designed, easy to add features to, pretty e-mail client for X check out http://althea.sourceforge.net
Re:Hate to say it but... (Score:2)
I do like Yahoo! Messenger. A solid balance between the feature heavy(redundantly so) ICQ and the feature light AIM. The interface is more complicated than AIMs, due to the better feature set, but all the features make sense and are easy to use. The one thing I don't like is the limitation on the number of friends you can have on it. But as an instant messaging client, Yahoo! has the best overall. ICQ for its greater feature set is useful as a secondary, and the others, well if you havbe friends on them maybe otherwise why bother?
Tribal Voice??? (Score:2)
"TribalVoice who was probably the only real threat to AOL in the instant messenger field"
How can a geek who almost always has 4 IM programs running(ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, and AIM) and has on several occasions looked for more not have gotten into "the only real threat to AOL in the instant messenger field"?? Why is it that I see people put Yahoo Messenger names on email sig files, but never TribalVoice??? And TV is the only real IM competition AOL had?? Just seems odd to me... Yahoo at least is a serious competitor to AIM, but not something I almost never heard of.
Re:Yahoo? (Score:1)
Re:Anyone else tried Odigo? (Score:1)
The people finder had its ups and downs...but I was usually in invisible/stealth mode.
Hence, I would deem some of the features (those that didn't work, it was still beta when I played with it) crap, but overall I thought it was good. I was most impressed with their response time to AOL's blockades.
I'll have to check out the two you mentioned
Ahh....the hope of a standard protocol for IM being implemented in the real world!
Galego
Anyone else tried Odigo? (Score:2)
But the cool part is that you can go online to the AIM, Yahoo! and ICQ networks from one IM interface. The only quip is that AOL sets up some block regularly (at least last time I used Odgio, need to set it up on my home/new work box). But Odigo would inevitably bypass it.
Overall, I liked it and used it. It also allowed you to find people (If you're looking for love, conversation, etc.) by profiles or make yourself invisible. They are making a Mac version now, which they didn't before...don't see why they wouldn't make a Linux version. Would the source open up? Dunno! Anyone else use it/know of any Odigo for Linux movements?
Cheers,
Galego
Now... (Score:1)
I remember hearing on the radio a news report that they were actually going to court for (get this) AOL stifling competition in this market. I've been all over CNN.com looking for the story, but can't find it. Anyone else hear about this, and if you have do you happen to have a link? I could use a good laugh
Re:write and talk anyone? (Score:1)
I use talk a great deal, as a Unix utility for communicating with other users on multiuser systems. There really arn't too many other uses for it though. If you're attempting to talk to other people on the net, IRC, or instant messengers are much better than giving everybody a shell account on a box and try to organize it with write.
Talk is completely useless IMHO. It requires a daemon to work (which introduces security issues) and it simply reproduces features of write. For instance, if two people wish to talk, they can just write eachother and then take turns typing (otherwise their words will get jumbled together). The only feature talk has is the possiblility of talking to people on remote computers, which duplicates the functionality of IRC as well as creating an even larger security issue, an open talk port to the internet.
By the way, you forgot to mention wall, a really useful command with which one can communicate with all users. Very useful in administrating multiuser boxes.
Re:But where are the public servers? (Score:2)
It's a good thing you didn't ask me about STABLE Jabber servers. I don't know what I could've answered then.
Regarding Jabber (Score:4)
Sure, Jabber is there, but I think it will be a long time, unfortunately, before it has anything meaningful to offer.
The server, to my knowledge, only runs on Linux, and still has some bugs -- especially in the agents. The clients (I've only tried the Windows flavor) are either buggy or lacking in features -- or both!
In fact, I tried experimentally to use Jabber last week instead of AIM (I tried JabberIM, WinJab and myJabber). I had to change servers twice because the previous one shut down an agent, or shut down completely. Each time, I essentially had to hand-enter my Roster items (a.k.a. buddy list) again since there is no way to import/export rosters.
I'm pretty close to installing VMWare and running Linux in it so I can run a Jabber server and develop my own client. But, who am I kidding? I don't have time for that!
I'll just stick to AIM, with all of its glorious bloat, for now
Re:When monopolies fight... (Score:1)
Re:Where is the revenue created by IM programs? (Score:1)
Re:And Yahoo!... (Score:1)
Regards, Tommy
Re:Regarding Jabber (Score:1)
A friend pointed me at altavista's chat client, which handles ICQ, AIM, MSN, and Yahoo, but I haven't followed up on that to see if he's for real...
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
Re:Regarding Jabber (Score:1)
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
Re:Regarding Jabber (Score:1)
And yes, I'm sure it still has some bugs. Everything has bugs. Did you want to further clarify your statement? Perhaps tell me that my jabber server is unstable?
Re:Regarding Jabber (Score:1)
Re:Tribal Voice a THREAT? Hah! (Score:1)
After your experience, Tribal Voice modified the PowWow software to make five connection attempts to determine if a buddy was present at the IP address and then stop.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
--
Re:Tribal Voice??? (Score:1)
The threat referred to, I believe, was the attention Tribal Voice brought to AOL's market dominance in the instant messaging field by generating publicity about interoperability issues and how former CEO Ross Bagully's testimony in front of the FCC might interfere with the AOL-Time Warner merger.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
--
Re:how about cross platform? (Score:1)
It may have been a poor decision for Tribal Voice to choose a public relations company that was incapable of using its products on most of their computers. It is unfortunate that Tribal Voice never developed versions of PowWow for other operating systems, such as MacOS, which would have made it more accessible to the employees of the public relations firm.
Tribal Voice used InstallShield to set up the software on a computer, a very common program for installing software under Windows.
If you had trouble installing or using the software, or were concerned about security risks, it might have been useful to contact Tribal Voice directly to resolve these issues in order to make it easier for your employer to handle the Tribal Voice account.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
--
Re:AIM v. PowWow (Score:1)
Tribal Voice used AOL's published protocols, which referenced their servers. If AOL did not wish for other companies to use their servers, they should not have published one of their instant messaging protocols publicly.
The situation is a little more analagous to the telephone system: If every phone company used different incompatible equipment, you would have to have multiple phones, phone lines, and bills so you could communicate with everyone who used a service different than yours. Different phone companies, though, do interconnect, even though the resources used may not be equal in each direction. Ultimately, the consumer benefits from this reciprocity.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
--
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:1)
Re:use which one? (Score:1)
This is a mixed blessing. AOL also keeps contact lists server-side, but only for the AOL-member version of their IM client (AIM stores contact lists client-side). The nice thing about server-side contact lists is the ease with which a user can port their account from one computer to the next. The problem with this is privacy/security issues.
Actually, all of the IM clients have one or two great features, along with some headache causing frustrations. Each one has a different piece of the puzzle. For instance, ICQ has the feature to require a user's authorization for another user to contact them. Unfortunately they botch the delivery of this feature by keeping the authentication client-side (no doubt a load off their servers, but a simple crack to older versions of the client allow malicious users to contact privacy-minded individuals whether they like it or not). Another result of client-side authentication is that users must repeatedly ask authorization to contact a friend every time they install the client on a new system.
Yahoo has better support over http proxies, AIM is almost entirely spam-free (although a few changes to the default configuration keep my ICQ spam to an easily dealt-with minimum).
I'd like to see these features in a universal IM client, should open standards develop in this arena:
* Local storage/management of contact list, but with an easy interface for exporting/importing contacts between clients on multiple computers
* Server-side authorization for contacting new users (possibly with a password feature for automatic authorization, allowing previously-authorized users or personal friends to automatically get authorization but without storing information on who is actually contacting who)
* Offline message delivery
* Multiple user peer-to-peer chat sessions
* File Transfer (possibly with the ability to publicly/privately share file directories and search for available files...users could choose to share certain files with publicly with the world, while keeping others restricted to users on their contact list, or even individual users...)
* Configurable user information, with the ability to offer different profiles to users with different levels of trust
* Standard privacy features such as the ability to make yourself invisible to certain users or groups of users, and the option to turn these off for those times your bored and really want to chat with strangers.
Re:Something I don't get.. (Score:2)
I don't have a great deal of respect for the engineers at AOL, but I have to imagine that even they understand implications of replacing the software on the wildly popular, heavily loaded, 24x7x365 server clusters that make up a large part of their business, with software that is specifically designed to be less robust and break with "certain" clients.
The fact that AOL is willing to repeatedly f*ck around with that software just to d*ck over Microsoft is a very good indication of where AOL feels the threat to their business model lies, what lengths they'll go to to protect that model, and the amount of respect they have for their customers.
It ain't a pretty picture, sunshine.
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:1)
Because I don't have time to deal with all the port-scanning, splits, channel floods, etc.
Its not that simple (Score:2)
In order to use the full AIM protocol, you have to reverse engineer it - besause the specs are not given out, and plus you are vulnerable to blocking and bugs if you dont interact well with the AIM servers.
Microsoft is also unlike Free developers, since it has a large concentrations of liability absorbing capital. I.E., they can be sued. Until they get out from under the "Antitrust" issue, they are not likely to countersue or do any "Microsoft pressure" tactics to force the issue.
AIM vs. ICQ (Score:2)
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why people prefer AIM over ICQ. ICQ can do everything that AIM can do and there are no ads on ICQ. (of course, you can remove the ads on AIM) If you want a real-time chat in ICQ you just open up a talk session. Someone sends you a message, and you get a notification in the sys tray, not a huge window. The beautiful thing is you can just let it sit there in the queue with ICQ. You'll get to it when you get to it. With AIM, this large window pops up right in your face. "You WILL chat with me!" Subtlety is a lost art.
The truth is that AOL spends all it's time pushing AIM and none on ICQ. That's tragic. AOL bought a great product/service in ICQ. It's just too bad that they are not giving it a real chance.
Re:Where is the revenue created by IM programs? (Score:1)
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
Trillian another option for Windows users (Score:1)
This is a field that doesn't need competition (Score:2)
Its like if every single telephone company wasn't compatible with each other... whats the point of using a smaller company if you cant talk to anyone? At least if they are all equal in service you can freely choose the one that gives you the best options.
Re:write and talk anyone? (Score:1)
NAME
write - send a message to another user
SYNOPSIS
write user [ttyname]
DESCRIPTION
Write allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from
your terminal to theirs.
and another goodie:
NAME
talk - talk to another user
SYNOPSIS
talk person [ttyname]
DESCRIPTION
Talk is a visual communication program which copies lines from your ter
minal to that of another user.
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:1)
When monopolies fight... (Score:2)
also...I found a typo..there-can-onlby-be-one dept.
Hemos, how do you spell only? slow down on those keys!
of course...by pointing out a spelling mistake, i have probably made several in this post....
Re:When monopolies fight... (Score:2)
Re:Where is the revenue created by IM programs? (Score:2)
MINE! MINE! (Score:2)
Unfortunately, there is nobody to come in and make them "share".
You can see parallels on a larger scale with other not so civilized types who come in and rip off people "for their own good".
"This reduction of service is by popular demand". etc.
a pox on all their houses.
Re:MINE! MINE! (Score:2)
not their messenger service, so much as all these folks trying to monopolize the internet for themselves.
The Internet started off as freely sharable resources. Now it is going in quite to opposite direction.
use which one? (Score:2)
Actually I use both Microsoft IM and ICQ.
I use MS IM because:
I work at different offices on different nt through port 80, that is in most cases open to workstations and firewall configs, so IM connects preserve internet browsing to their employees. In most cases I am unabled to use ICQ.
You can check your hotmail account (that I use for the same reason as MS IM) without actually browsing to the webpage.
My contactlist is kept serverside. (or is this a disadvantage?)
I use ICQ because:
I can send messages to people not online, they'll receive it when they come online
There is a version for my linuxbox
I don't get adds
Re:IRC anyone? (Score:2)
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
2 (small) points (Score:2)
Did you forget to pay the typo tax, Hemos?
Except if AOL/MSN, etc. just decide to update their protocols to force the public to upgrade towards their tools...
--
Where is the revenue created by IM programs? (Score:3)
AOL IM (Score:2)
I think AIM's warning system is a pile of crap. In fact, BLOCK should be the ONLY option, and it should be taken effect immediately. As of right now, If you respond to a message and then block someone when they start warning you, they can still warn you to their full extent.. Wha? That's totally abused... Not to mention AOL's stupid system of allowing anyone to create any name at any time... All it asks for is differant email addresses. Hell, I have UNLIMITED email addresses. I could sit there all nite and create. There is no limit! Even if you use the SAME email, you can still do it 5 or so times before it asks you to change!
I don't know whether to be excited or scared. After AOL bought ICQ and Netscape, the world has been a scary place. Gah.
Seeka
What about Odigo? (Score:2)
IRC anyone? (Score:2)
(D)DOS attacks? (Score:2)
I'm guessing AOL has some bandwidth to spare, but still...
Is this less bad since there are no 'channels' to take over or what?
Moz.