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The Internet

Keeping Non-Corporate Instant-Messaging Alive? 26

Posted by Cliff from the communications-for-the-masses dept.
dc_cypher asks: "Soon after I read these two articles, I stumbled across a secure unified IM client powered by Bantu on a Sprint site. While many people are turning to electronic communications to enhance (and protect) their reachability in the midst of the recent terrorist activities, what can we do to keep these useful non-corporate alternatives from being legally and financially slaughtered, only to end up joining their file-sharing bretheren in the internet graveyard?"
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Keeping Non-Corporate Instant-Messaging Alive? More

Keeping Non-Corporate Instant-Messaging Alive?

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  • IM != Cash Cow (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cow4263 ( 312716 ) <mike@b o x 1 . o rg> on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @06:07AM (#2531839)
    Simply put, all instant messaging platforms will lose money, or break even if lucky. I'm willing to bet that those ads they put in the clients (which are only there if the clients are wiling to have them) are worth just a little over nothing. I think AOL just likes having a monopoly on the whole Instant Message market, probably hoping to get some of those AIM accounts into full-fledged AOL accounts (I'd like to see some numbers on how many people actually 'upgrade' to AOL from their AIM screennames). When they bought up ICQ, that should have been a message to everyone that they just want all instant message traffic to go through their servers for whatever unknown reason.

    Anyway, I don't know if non-corpate IM protocals are economically viable at all, especially when ad banners are all but worthless these days.

    oh, fp :P

    • Re:IM != Cash Cow (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gorillasoft ( 463718 )
      I don't think their goal is specifically to have people convert from their own ISP to AOL. People already using a different ISP are not too likely to go to AOL - they already know how to use the Interent and probably don't need AOL's handholding.

      I think that AOL likes having as many people using AIM as possible, regardless of the ISP they use, so that they have the largest user base of all messaging solutions. That way, they get to entice new Internet users to AOL by saying "look, all your friends are using AOL for messaging, why don't you get AOL too? It's the easiest way to talk to all of your friends and get that exclusive AOL neighborhood content!"

      Well, something like that anyway. It's more for marketing to new people than for conversion - once someone escapes AOL, they aren't too likely to go back.

      To agree with your main point though, it would certainly appear that IM may not be economically viable as your sole business model.
    • I actually 'downgraded' from aol to AIM when i got to college. I was using aol because its what the parents paid for back home. But when i got sick of seeing how much crap i could download at once (god i love having a LAN into several OC lines), i started using aim to talk to my people. AIM has MORE instant messaging features than straight up aol. as of version 6.0, Aol has no away function, no single click editiing, you cant see whos offline without going several menus deep.

      My point is that the people paying for aol to use as acess get fewer useful features than those who use the free AIM client.

    • a lot of IMs have space for you to fill in information about yourself:
      country, interests that people can search for, languages you speak, etc.

      if this information was actually used, you might see something very different from their advertising.

  • ICQ 2000 has more "features" than it needs, or that I want, I just want the name of who is online (and off line), a way to change my status and a message window, nothing more... I have turned off most of these "features" in ICQ, and I am currently looking for an alternative (that runs off of the ICQ network)... any sugestions?
    • You'll probably see a lot of suggestions for this, but maybe I'll be first ;-) Check out jabber.org
    • Licq is a very good client that I use. Check it out at www.licq.org [licq.org].

      About the only ICQ feature it doesn't have (yet) are file transfers. But, then I just want an IM client. I have ftp covered already.

    • i use Trillian ( www.trillian.cc ). unfortunately there's no non-windows version yet, but it very happily runs on the AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, and MSN networks. plus it has an IRC client built in. it's still in beta, so it perhaps doesn't have all the nice little conveniences of a finished IM client, but it's certainly not bloated either.
    • ICQ Lite [icq.com] is for you then! (if you don't mind using Java in a web browser)

      It does everything you ask, and nothing more. Since it runs in the web browser it doesn't have the tray icon, and it is a regular window. I like how ICQ gets out of the way. The upside is ICQ Lite works with any Java enabled browser so you can use it pretty much anywhere, on any machine. (yes it even works in Linux!) Also since ICQ with thier newest release saves contact lists to the server and since I tried the alpha out I already had my list for ICQ Lite created.

      Speaking of the new ICQ alpha, it isn't as bloated as the current one because it is all plugin based. The thing I couldn't stand was that it still had all the options as menu options saying (Install now) or somthing to that effect. Hopefully it is reworked for the beta release! Beware the alpha if you decide to try it, it made my hard drive write something about every 30 seconds!?

      I still don't think I'd want to use ICQ Lite as my primary ICQ client, but it does the job when I'm not on my computer. A native ICQ Lite would be best.
  • First thing: I'm not looking for the official client stuff. I want a server. And I haven't had luck finding one. Think about it: you own private ICQ network. Anyhow, has anyone found a Linux-based ICQ server?
    • http://freshmeat.net/projects/iserverd/

      About: IServerd implements the ICQ V3 groupware protocol, and supports the V5 protocol. It is targeted for corporate use. Currently you can use the Groupware clients from Mirabilis, and V5 clients: ICQ99a, ICQ99b, CenterICQ, Licq, and Micq with this server.

      Baz

  • Jabber (Score:5, Informative)

    by tzanger ( 1575 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @10:07AM (#2532356) Homepage

    I was forced out of ICQ since their servers now drop packets not coming from v7 clients and LICQ is definately not v7; hell I don't even think it's being developed anymore.

    AOL is blocking non-proprietary clients and the others out there are too small to worry about... I've switched to Jabber (using the Psi client).

    Why Jabber? Interoperability. I can connect to a dozen other IMs as necessary. Right now I'm "cheating" ICQ by using the AIM transport which seems to work alright. But the biggest reason I like Jabber is that I also have the server source, and have my own Jabber server for my company.

    Sure there are only 2 people on it right now but that's the point -- It's totally decentralized. I can get a hold of any other jabber client by searching THEIR server. You don't need to be on the same server to communicate. Very cool.

    Jabber has a few interesting transports too like IRC and email. If it doesn't have what you want, write it, as the spec is open and will stay that way.

    I was avoiding Jabber for a long time for several reasons: the clients were all GTK or Java or BUTT UGLY, they were big big big, and petty much all the clients popped up new messages. That's a royal pain in the ass when you actually use your computer. Psi has the option to just raise the window but it took focus too. I helped hack Psi so that its "Raise window" didn't take focus which is exactly what the old ICQ and LICQ did. Perfect. I can type away at 100WPM and if a message comes in I don't end up spilling half the paragraph into the IM window. I can shrink it small like ICQ/LICQ. The Psi developer promises to try and add in global-key support so I can map alt-backspace to pull up the next message. That's all I need in an IM.

    That's my solution for closed-source proprietary bullshit IM protocols: route around them. Jabber is a great way to do so becuase it's decentralized and totally open.

    • >I was forced out of ICQ since their servers now
      >drop packets not coming from v7 clients and LICQ
      >is definately not v7; hell I don't even think
      >it's being developed anymore.

      Hmm ... that is strange, I log into ICQ daily with Licq (v1.03) . Only problem I've seen recently, is that it doesn't erase messages that got sent to you while you are offline ... so you keep receiving them until you log in with an official client ....

      • Hmm ... that is strange, I log into ICQ daily with Licq (v1.03) . Only problem I've seen recently, is that it doesn't erase messages that got sent to you while you are offline ... so you keep receiving them until you log in with an official client

        Heh, I've never had that problem. LICQ works fine so long as you're sending direct; if you have to send through the server LICQ has about a 40-60% chance of getting the message across. I've spoken to several people using LICQ (v1.03 yes) and that is the general consensus.

        So, I've jumped off the proprietary IM bandwagon. Fuck 'em. I actually helped Sefi and Ari with some early early ICQ problems but ever since joining up with AOL it's been a downhill slide.

      • That's neat, cause my mothers official 99b, keeps getting messages over and over that are sent to her.. if she's sent a message while she is offline, when she goes online, she gets them, everytime she goes online.

        in addition, she shows up as offline all the time to other users, unless it's a fresh install of ICq.. so she has to reinstall ICQ everytime she wants to use it

  • As far as secure IM clients go... (Score:4, Informative)

    by ShaunC ( 203807 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:47PM (#2533698)
    You won't see many secure IM clients unless they were written outside the US. I wrote a secure peer2peer instant messaging client, i.e. you connect directly to your buddy instead of going through someone's server. The program Blowfish encrypts all IMs, supports variable bit-length keys between 32 and 448 bits, and allows the conversants to change the key at any time by setting a new password. Good luck eavesdropping!

    Now, all that said, have you ever tried to get a program like this approved by the US government? I've spent hours poring over the BXA website, as well as the GPO's archive [gpo.gov] of EAR regulations, trying to figure out exactly what license exception I should apply for. After all the reading and research I've done, I've gotten nowhere. I sent an inquiry to the BXA's crypto folks and haven't heard back. I looked in Usenet and found twenty different answers. I did see it mentioned that if I release the program as open source I don't even have to get it licensed, but I couldn't verify that at BXA's site.

    From what I gather, if I want to distribute the program I'd probably have to set a fixed key, or at the very least cap the key length at 160 bits. Then I'd have to apply under one of several license exception categories, though I don't know which; and if you apply for the wrong one, oops, sorry, you wasted your time documenting how your program meets the EAR requirements. Supposing I managed to apply properly, I may have to wait 30 days before making the program available; meanwhile my spec (and perhaps source code) is in someone else's hands.

    $DEITY forbid I want to charge a shareware fee for the program, then I have to figure out whether it's classified as ENC Retail, ENC Non-Retail, etc. Or if I have the arms-trafficking gall to try and distribute the program with 448 bit capability - assuming that was approved, mind you - I'd have to implement some method of checking the IP address of each potential downloader to make sure they're inside the US... And then what happens if someone's using a proxy?

    All in all I don't have the time to deal with this shit. And so I gave up (I get the feeling this is exactly what the whole mess is meant to encourage). I've given the program to some friends whom I can personally vouch for as US residents. Other than those few people, it'll probably never see the light of day. Unfortunate, but I wouldn't say it's the Big IM Players' fault that secure IM clients aren't taking off. They'd be everywhere if it wasn't such a hassle.

    (BTW if anyone has had success getting a Blowfish program licensed for export, please reply with your secret!)

    Shaun
  • Trillian [trillian.cc] is a good messenging program that combines them all into one. The interface is a bit oversimplified and lacking in a few features, but I still use it for all my instant messenging needs.

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