It's been a while since AOL launched an updated version if its instant messenger for Windows Mobile. The new version is still in beta, but it has some nifty features that make it worth checking out. The first thing you'll notice is that the interface is much more attractive. But it's also more useful.
When you first login you're greeted with a buddy list. You can double tap on any contact to enter a chat window. After you've initiated a chat you can flip back to your buddy list knowing that you'll be able to see all open chats and any new messages in the sidebar that now pops up.
You can also manage your buddy list from the client. And the settings menu has a nice array of options letting you customize your notification, conversation, and privacy settings.
This beta supports devices running Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.
AOL is getting serious about opening up its popular instant messenger application. A few months ago the company launched the Open AIM initiative, making available the APIs and documentation developers need to add AIM features to third party applications or to develop third party plugins for AIM. Now AOL, which happens to be this blog's parent company, has announced the winners of a $100,000 design competition. Winning entries included applications that let you:
Instantly translate messages from one language to another
Preview an URL in an IM by hovering your mouse over it
Manage your RSS feeds from within AIM
Share your desktop with another AIM user
Convert text-based instant messages to speech
Nine winners scored $10,000, while 20 more winners got $500 prizes. You can check out a list of winner and see all the submissions at the TopCoder contest page.
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.
Look, we know you've already got about two dozen chat clients installed on your computer so you can keep in touch with your contacts using instant messengers from Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, and other services (seriously haven't you ever heard of Pidgin?) But the latest entry in the instant messaging game is actually worth taking a look at.
Social.im is an instant messaging client that lets you chat with your Facebook contacts. The idea is that while your friends may use any number of different chat clients, there's a good chance they use Facebook. We don't know if that's true, but the first time we ran Social.im 60+ names showed up in our contact list, which is something we can't say for any other new instant messaging service we've ever tried.
What makes Social.im different from all the Facebook applications that let you chat with your contacts is that you don't run Social.im in a web browser window. Rather it's a standalone program that logs into your Facebook account sans web browser. Of course, your friends need to download and install the client before you can chat with them, but Social.im makes it easy to send messages to your friends letting them know about the service. You know, if you want to be that guy.
As a chat client, Social.im is pretty basic. There's no file transfer or image sharing features. There's no voice chat. But the client does include a status bar letting you know if you've received any new Facebook messages, pokes, friend requests, or wall posts since your last login. Clicking on the icons brings up Facebook in a web browser. It would be nice if you could also right click on a contact's name to bring up their page in a web browser, but this is still an early release.
Social.im is available for Windows only at the moment, but a Mac version is coming soon.
About a month ago Meebo announced they had a new third party development platform. With it, developers can create multi user applications where users can connect to each other. Now the fun starts rolling out, starting with games.
With over 200 registered developers, Meebo has pushed out 20 multiplayer games and made them available for users to play through the online instant messaging platform. Some head to head challenging games include Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Connect4, Sudoku wars and Texas Hold'em, making the online messaging location even more tempting to use and replace current standard IM's with.
Although gaming is just a start, the next round of Meebo platform categories include shopping, productivity, work applications, music and video.
It looks like Google may be planning some new Gmail features. Many users are already noticing a "newer version" of the Gmail interface with faster page loading and an expanded contact manager. But did you notice that you can choose from a list of instant message services to flesh out our contact profile? Kind of funny, since you can only chat with other Gmail/GTalk users from within the Gmail interface -- or can you?
Ionut Alex Chitu over at Google Operating System took a look at the updated Gmail code and found indications that Google would be adding support for Jabber transports. In other words, you may soon be able to chat with contacts using Yahoo!, MSN, or AOL instant messengers as well as Google Talk and other chat clients from within the Gmail interface.
Chitu also uncovered evidence that you'll be able to add colors to labels, and detach messages from conversations. We have to admit, we were a little underwhelmed with Google's latest facelift, but we're heartened at the thought that the updated contact manager is just the first of many changes coming soon.
Imo.Im is a web based instant messaging service, from former Google employees, that lets you IM your friends from various IM clients, such as AIM, Google Talk, MSN, and Yahoo Messenger. This aggregator service is similar to Meebo and e-buddy.
Now that's all well and good, but they just added video chat to really get the party going. Now you can video chat with your friends using a web cam with just one click via an invite button. You can also do a three way chat with the first two chatters each opening a separate window with the third party.
Another feature sure to be the ultimate party starter, is Imo's group chat, which lets you chat across multiple IM clients, although this feature is still under development.
Imo.Im was launched in April and its creators are fomer employees of Google. It has about 70,000 users.
We're starting to think there's nothing you can't build on top of Mozilla. There's the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, Songbird music player/browser, and now it looks like we've got a Mozilla-based instant messaging client.
Instantbird is still in early beta. But version 0.1 already shows some promise. The application is a multi-client chat program letting you connect to popular instant messaging services including AOL, MSN, and Yahoo!. You know, pretty much like Pidgin. In fact, Instantbird uses libpurple, the same code library used by Pidgin.
Version 0.1 is still pretty buggy, Instantbird has a long road in front of it. The goal for version 1.0? Make a chat client that has all the same features as Pidgin. But beyond that, the developers hope to add voice and video functionality to Instantbird, which would make it a killer multi-protocol messenger application.
Like most things Mozilla, Instantbird comes in Linux, Windows, and Mac varieties. But we don't really recommend compiling it from source on Ubuntu unless you really know what we're doing. We waited over 2 hours for it to compile before getting an error message.
You've got friends using AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, and Google's instant messenger clients. You could install four different applications, or you could use a multi-protocol chat client like Pidgin, Miranda, or Trillian.
For mac users, the undisputed champion of multi-chat clients is Adium. Like all things Mac, the program has a cult-following and probably for good reason. It's a robust chat application that works with more than a dozen different chat protocols.
But it's about to get some competition. Cerulean Studios, the company behind Trillian is working on a Mac version of their popular IM client. The Mac version is still in the early alpha testing phase and doesn't have all the features you can find on its Windows cousin. In other words, while you can test it out today, you probably won't feel any urge to stop using Adium. Eventually the developers plan to add features and full-fledged multi-chat client for OS X.
In order to sign up for the Alpha you'll need to sign up for an account using the Windows version of Trillian Astra.
Core Security's Aviv Raff reports that AOL's AIM client has a severe vulnerability. A user can send code in an instant message that will execute code on your computer. You don't even have a click a link. As long as you're accepting incoming messages, a hacker could wreak havoc on your system.
In a demonstration, Raff sent ZDNet's Ryan Naraine a message that cause his Windows calculator to open. AOL is working on a patch, and recommends users upgrade to the latest beta version of AIM. But Raff says that so far each patch that has been issued has been easily circumvented.
AOL says a full solution will be available by mid-October. In the meantime, we recommend rejecting messages from any unknown source and hoping that your buddies aren't running infected PCs. And if you want to be extra careful, you can access your buddy list using an alternative program like Meebo, Pidgin, or Trillian.
It's been a while since AOL launched an updated version if its instant messenger for Windows Mobile. The new version is still in beta, but it has some nifty features that make it worth checking out. The first thing you'll notice is that the interface is much more attractive. But it's also more useful. 
About a month ago 
