What could be more fun than browsing your favorite sites? Why, browsing your favorite sites while directing a funky-looking avatar to parade around and do your bidding, of course. Unlike PMOG, where your experience is backgrounded until you stumble upon mines or loot (but requires a Firefox extension to work), RocketOn figures it'll be a lot more fun to disrupt your browsing with some crudely animated avatars overlaid on top of whatever page you're on. They do this in much the same way Gabbly works, by intercepting the page and overlaying the content on top. Essentially, you're seeing a browser in a browser.
We weren't particularly impressed with RocketOn, however. While the tech works well enough, is there really a desire to put an avatar on pages? It completely interrupts the experience and adds practically nothing that you can't get from a service like Gabbly, save the rather lame avatars. The avatars themselves aren't very customizable out of the box, although apparently you're supposed to hang out on the bare pages of RocketOn to "earn" more stuff. Pets, clothes, the usual crap you get thrown at you on Facebook. Ultimately this looks like a nice tech demo that is just a complete waste of time. Or maybe we're missing the point.
Pidgin doesn't officially support Facebook Chat (yet?), but it can be customized with useful add-ons like the new Facebook Chat plug-in. Once installed, the plug-in allows Pidgin to log-in to a Facebook account, pull the buddy-list, and send/receive messages.
Adium, arguably Pidgin's counterpart on Mac, also received support for Facebook Chat in the recent 1.3 beta release, though, the feature is absent from the most recent official update. If you're a risk-taker who enjoys putting his/her computer in jeopardy for the sake of testing new software, give it a shot.
We've also covered a couple of other methods of taking Facebook Chat outside the site:
There's a Firefox plug-in that adds the social-network's IM service to a sidebar.
The American dream is alive and well -- on the internet. Whether you truly believe that anyone can grow up to be president, it's absolutely true that anyone can plaster their name on a couple of web sites and call themselves a candidate. If you're looking for a slightly more professional look, check out News3Online, a fake news website where you can create a video like the one above.
You can fill in your own information or play a little practical joke on a friend by changing the name. The whole thing is really just a viral marketing tool from the makers of PalTalk, an online chatroom service. But as viral marketing tools go, it's pretty fun, if not entirely original. Showtime created a similar fill-in-the-blanks style video to promote the TV show Dexter last year.
Your co-workers use MSN Messenger, your family is partial to AOL Instant Messenger, and your friends use Google Talk. There are plenty of utilities that let you keep in touch with all of your contacts regardless of the IM platform they're using. But while we love Digsby, Trillian, Pidgin, and Adium most of the time, there are a few features missing from those apps:
Support for voice and video chats
The ability to invite friends from different IM networks into a single chat room
And that's where Instan-T comes in. This multi-protocol chat client for Windows supports AOL, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Messengers. It also supports voice and video chat across each network, although we've found that feature to be a bit finnicky. When we tested out a voice chat, we were able to the person speaking on the other end, but she couldn't hear us. We'll chalk that up to a hardware problem.
Probably the most interesting thing about Instan-T is that it lets you set up a chat room that you can invite contacts from any service to participate in. Just click on a contact name and select multi-person chat. They'll receive an invitation with a URL to click on that will open up a Flash-based chat room, which also features voice and video support.
We'll be honest. The Instan-T interface is a little cluttered and confusing when compared with other multi-protocol chat clients. But the application definitely shows promise. If you want to try the service without downloading and installing anything, you Instan-T also has a Meebo-like web based instant messenger. The web client supports Internet Explorer and Firefox, which means you should be able to access the service whether you're using Windows, Linux or OS X.
Remember Lycos? Once upon a time they were a search engine and internet portal, just like Google and Yahoo! And today they're... well, actually they're still around, much to our surprise. And today the company launched its most interesting product in ages: an online video site with a social twist.
When you start watching a movie in Lycos Cinema, you can invite friends to watch along with you, no matter where they are. The video will play back on all of your computers at almost exactly the same instant. So users can chat about the movie in real-time as they watch. The person who starts the movie can pause, rewind, and fast forward the video stream. And the controls are almost instantaneous. If you've got a broadband connection, you can skip ahead to the end of a movie in just a matter of seconds, with no buffering.
The site features both free and paid content. When you rent a movie, you can pay one fee for a one person rental, another for "5 seats," and the top price for "10 seats." The prices seem reasonable, topping out at around $6 for 10 seats. But there's one major problem. The content sucks. We're talking, makes Joost, and even Babelgum look good sucks. The most exciting thing we could find in the free content was a Godzilla movie. The rental store content is about as fresh, with titles like Convoy and Monster from a Prehistoric Planet in the featured content section. You can imagine what the non-featured content looks like.
While there are several desktop instant messaging applications that allow you to chat with Facebook users, Digsby is one of the first 3rd party applications to add support for Facebook's new native chat feature. Digsby pushed out an updated version of its chat/social networking/email notification application this afternoon. The latest update brings the list of supported instant messengers to:
AOL
MSN
Yahoo!
Google Talk
ICQ
Jabber
Facebook
The Facebook chat feature supports status messages, popup notifications, and buddy icons. The latest Digsby release also features updates for Yahoo! Mail with support for international email addresses and support for the beta version of the Yahoo! Mail web site. The update also fixes all known issues with Proxy support.
Mibbit is a new IRC client that -- wait, they still make IRC clients? While AOL, MSN, Google, Skype and others dominate the world chat scene these days, once upon a time IRC or Internet Relay Chat was king. And while IRC doesn't get much attention these days, it's still alive, kicking, and useful if you need a multi-user chat system for communicating with co-workers, open source project developers, or anonymous folks you might want to trade files with.
So what makes Mibbit different from old school IRC clients? It's web-based, which means you can run it from anywhere. But despite the fact that you can run Mibbit from your web browser, you get all of the features you'd expect from a desktop based IRC client, and then some.
There's a search engine that lets you find channels by keyword. You can change the color scheme, and even use a built in translator to communicate with users in different languages. Each new channel or server screen opens in a new Mibbit tab, and if you're running Mibbit in a tabbed browser, you'll get cute little alerts like "Server stuff!" or "People said stuff!"
There's even a Mibbit widget that you can install on your web site to let visitors chat with you via IRC.
That certainly didn't take long. Just a day after going live, HuddleChat is no more. HuddleChat was a web-based multi-user chat room utilizing the new Google App Engine. It bore a striking resemblance to Campfire, a similar application from 37signals. The main difference was that Campfire used a freemium model (free for up to 4 users, fee for more users), while HuddleChat was completely free.
Now, technically, there's nothing wrong with developing an application that looks and feels a lot like a competing application. After all, is it surprising that two web-based multi-user chat rooms are going to look a lot alike? You have a chat window, a message window, a friends list window, and so on. It all seems rather obvious. But while Google App Engine is open to anybody (or at least the first 10,000 users to sign up during the beta), HuddleChat was actually written by two Google employees during their free time. And that made it hard to see as anything other than a direct strike at 37signals' Campfire. It sort of screamed "Hey, we like your product, now we're going to clone it, make it free, and drive you out of business!"
Needles to say, 37signals wasn't very happy to see HuddleChat, and now there's a message on the HuddleChat web site explaining that the application has been removed. So now if you want a multi-user, web-based chat room with transcripts and file uploads for team meetings or group chats, it looks like you'll have to stick with Campfire. Until someone else comes along with a free clone.
A lot of folks say that Google's new App Engine is basically a free clone of Amazon's Web Services. And they're pretty much right. So we probably shouldn't be surprised to find that some of the applications already making use of Google App Engine are free clones of other popular programs.
HuddleChat is a web-based mult-user chat application built with Google's App Engine. And it's almost identical to Campfire, a chat application from 37signals. But while Campfire provides free chat rooms for up to 4 users, and charges a fee for rooms with more users, HuddleChat lets an unlimited number of users chat for free.
The interface is pretty slick and offers a bunch of features that make it ideal for virtual team meetings. Chats are automatically archived, and you can upload files like images which will be displayed in the chat. They're also saved on a Transcripts & Files page. You can invite any user by sending out an email from the site, or you can share the room's URL. Best of all, users can sign into a chat room using their Google ID. So if you already have a Gmail, Google Calendar, or Picasa account you don't need to sign up for a new account to use HuddleChat.
Predictably, the folks at 37signals are less than pleased with HuddleChat.
Update: Astute blogger Emily Price noticed that there's at least one important Campfire feature missing from HuddleChat: Search. Which is kind of funny when you consider the fact that HuddleChat is hosted by Google and was developed by two Google employees.
As expected, Facebook is beginning to roll out a chat feature. This weekend some users noticed the chat functionality showing up on their Facebook pages. But this appears to be a phased rollout, as many users still don't have the ability to chat with their Facebook contacts in real time. You know, unless they use a third party service like Social.im or Babuki.
The Facebook chat service appears to be nicely integrated with the site. Users will notice some chat controls at the bottom of their Facebook page letting them know how many users are online. You can pull up a list of your friends and send them messages from any page on the site. If you accidentally close a window, Facebook will keep track of your history and show older messages when you launch a new chat with the same contact. But if you close the page entirely, you're out of luck since there does not appear to be a way to save your entire chat history.
Honestly, we're more impressed with third party services like Social.im and Babuki which use Facebook's API to provide a standalone chat client that can be used without keeping Facebook's web page open in a browser all day. But we get the feeling that plenty of folks will use the official Facebook chat client simply because it's there and easy to use.
While Google's GTalk messaging application is currently Windows only, shankri-la points out that similar functionality can be achieved by using Mozilla's beta project, Prism, to create a standalone web application.
After Prism is installed, run the program and enter the following line as the application URL:
https://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client
Next, give your application a name like "GTalk," and choose your shortcut locations. You'll then have a GTalk/Prism web application that runs separately from your regular web browser (which is helpful for keeping conversations on a separate monitor or to prevent accidental quitting of the application during web use).
Signing in to your newly-created gadget will present you with your contact list and basic GTalk instant messaging. You won't be able to do fancy things like send files or use the music status functions, but you will be able to group chat, use emoticons, and save your chat history (if you've enabled that preference in your Gmail settings).
We know you could use the Google Talk within Gmail or use a Jabber client for Mac/Linux to connect, but using Prism to create a web app can create a better workflow for some users. You won't have to keep a Gmail tab open for IM, and you won't mistakenly quit Firefox when you're done browsing on another tab (which would close your IM session as well).
Digsby, the instant messaging, social networking, email super-tool we first told you about last month launches its public beta today. That means you can sign up without an invitation code. The latest version of the Digsby client also has ton of new features:
Twitter support
Audio and video chat through a partnership with ToxBox
Spell checking
New "listening to..." status box will automatically update your status with currently playing songs from iTunes or Winamp
Block contacts by right clicking in the IM window
If you're still not exactly sure what Digsby does, it's basically a single application that lets you communicate with your IM contacts, friends on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, or anyone else thanks to email notifications. You can configure Digsby to display a pop up alert every time you receive an email, every time a friend sends a message via Twitter, or every time someone changes their MySpace or Facebook status. You can also see a list of recent updates in each category.
Digsby historically has been a bit of a memory hog compared to lighter weight instant messaging programs like Pidgin. But considering just how many features Digsby has that Pidgin lacks, the memory use doesn't seem excessive.
The application is available for Windows XP and Vista. Mac and Linux clients are in the works.
Facebook is adding new privacy controls today which will give you more control over your interactions with people in your friend lists. For example, you can share photo albums or applications with your professional contacts while hiding away the good stuff for closer friends.
The company also confirmed plans to launch a web-based instant messenger service that will let you communicate with other Facebook members in real-time. TechCrunch has the video you can see above showing how Facebook Chat could work. But the application is still in development and there could be some changes before it's officially launched in a few weeks.
As IM clients go, Facebook Chat doesn't look that impressive. You'll only be able to communicate with other Facebook users, not AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger users. But Jabber support could be added in the future, which would let you access Facebook Chat with third party software like Trillian, Pidgin, or Adium.
It's hard to get by with just one chat client these days. Your contacts aren't likely to be limited to a single service, like Google Talk, MSN Live or AIM, so a multi-chat client is a must. Now the multi-chat experience is about to get a lot better for AIM's 27.8 million users, with the launch of AOL's Open AIM 2.0 initiative.
Open AIM will aid the developers of clients like Meebo and eBuddy by releasing documentation for OSCAR, the protocol that the official AIM client uses to connect to the service. Open source libraries are now allowed to access the AIM network, and developers are free to create mobile or corporate versions of AIM to their heart's content, and AIM will now all kinds of widgets and plugins.
What does this mean for users? For one, some of the compatibility issues with third-party clients might finally go away -- file transfer is the one that's always been a sore spot for us. AOL is promising access to AIM's voice and video capabilities, too. Keep an eye out for updates to your favorite chat client, because the devs are likely working at full speed to add new features under Open AIM.
There's a new feature in town for Gmail Chat, but it's actually not all that new. It's been possible for some time now to go into "invisible" mode via AIM and other chat protocols, but Gmail Chat is finally joining the invisible party.
Going invisible through chat software enables IMers to log into their IM accounts without showing that they've logged on. It's still possible for others to IM you, though it's unlikely since you wouldn't be listed as "online", and you can also IM others.
Invisible mode in Gmail Chat doesn't yet work with Google Talk, the gadget and desktop app. Currently, it's only supported via the online Gmail interface, but we're sure that'll change soon.
What could be more fun than browsing your favorite sites? Why, browsing your favorite sites while directing a funky-looking avatar to parade around and do your bidding, of course. Unlike PMOG, where your experience is backgrounded until you stumble upon mines or loot (but requires a Firefox extension to work), RocketOn figures it'll be a lot more fun to disrupt your browsing with some crudely animated avatars overlaid on top of whatever page you're on. They do this in much the same way Gabbly works, by intercepting the page and overlaying the content on top. Essentially, you're seeing a browser in a browser.
There's a new feature in town for Gmail Chat, but it's actually not all that new. It's been possible for some time now to go into "invisible" mode via AIM and other chat protocols, but Gmail Chat is finally joining the invisible party.
