Will "hot and hip" Apple buy "hot and hip" Twitter? That is the rumor that Kenneth Corbin addresses in his blog on InternetNews.com. It really could happen as Twitter is really hot but would Apple pay the high price that Twitter demands? Probably not. One thing about Twitter that will make it just a fad that people do not realize. Twitter is not an open standard and is operated by a private company. Without peer review, this will not be like RSS news or P2P (i.e. BitTorrent). There is an open sourced project called Laconica that shows promise. Without open standards for microblogging, Twitter could easily meet the same fate as PointCast.Would an Apple purchase of Twitter keep it viable for years to come? Yes. Will Apple purchase Twitter, no. I think I am already tired of Twitter being flogged on CNN. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
The Yahoo Messenger Blog is reporting that Yahoo Messenger Version 9 Beta now has voice support for Vista. This will be good news for Windows Vista users as Yahoo's special version for Vista had no chat room or conferencing support. The blog also states that they want Vista users to move to this version instead of using the special Vista version now. Yahoo also says that Mac users now have voice support. What is keeping them from proper Linux support?
IRC-Junkie has reported the arrest of a major IRC botnet overlord that had control over 1 million computers around the world. The botnet was constructed using the AKBot worm and was used to attack IRC networks as well as companies and university systems. The 18 year old suspect was caught by New Zealand police in partnership with the FBI. More arrests will be coming on this case.
Instant Messaging Planet has taken look at Pidgin, the cross platform instant messaging client that can connect to most of the major networks. Pidgin's roots are in Gaim but the project was pressured to rename the project due to its similarity to "AIM". Official versions can be found for Linux, MacOSX and Windows but there are unofficial builds for a variety of platforms. Also included in Pidgin is an IRC client. Even the ICB service is supported with a plugin. You can also theme your Pidgin client to your tastes and I have mine fitting the theme of my KDE Linux desktop. One feature lacking is audio and video support. There is work being done on audio using XMPP/Jabber Jingle technology but it progresses rather slowly and a user will have to compile their own Pidgin to make it work. Still, it is a wonderful program that does many things. I use it daily and find it very stable. It is worth a look. You can find out more about the project at www.pidgin.im.
FriendVox will be a new instant messaging client for Facebook users. The new service gleans information from the user's Facebook page, imports their contacts from the page and places them as "friends" in the client software. The new program, that is beginning a test program, is web based and they claim that there is no special software to download. The UK based company Techlightenment has not stated any type of partnership with Facebook with their FriendVox software. It is interesting however how they wll be able to grab contact information from the user's Facebook page and I'm wondering if Facebook will be happy about this capability or not.
I came across a blog that has discovered that AOL is testing the XMPP Jabber protocol for their AIM and ICQ services. This signifies a major change for AOL to accept open standards in instant messaging. Blog readers report that there are a few bugs in the implementation thus far but Jabber software clients are connecting to the test servers. This will mean that AIM and ICQ "transports"; that connect to these services through a Jabber server will no longer be needed if AOL makes the move entirely to XMPP. An AOL engineer on the project posted on the blog "Thanks for blogging about our commitment to openness. We’ve been working really hard over the past few years in making all of our services more open and standards based, working with the SIP as well as the Jabber/XMPP communities. Our XMPP gateway at xmpp.oscar.aol.com, which we've been working on for a while now, is just one approach we're tinkering with. As you pointed out, though, this particular server at xmpp.oscar.aol.com is a test server, so I wouldn't count on it being reliable or even continuously available until we put some more work into it to bring it up to our standards. In the meantime, keep your eyes open for more announcements from us soon. We're excited by the work we're doing and the support we've received from the broader internet community and hope you'll be just as excited by what we've got to offer. Efforts like this can only help enhancing current Jabber standards and speeding the implementation of new ones.
Yahoo has released a "preview" version for Windows Vista. This special version for Vista, built from the ground up will hopefully solve the irritating problems that Vista users have had with previous versions of Yahoo Messenger. One big feature that has been missing is sound support. Also, it has been noted that some have had webcam troubles as well although that may be Vista driver related. I personally had a very frustrating experience in trying to get sound working for a client in Yahoo Messenger so this version will be very welcome. Why did these fixes take so damn long? Better late than never I guess.
Google has added AIM capability in their Google Talk client according to Instant Messaging Planet. This is a feature that has been part of the Jabber community, for which Google Talk is based on, for some time. According to the article, this does not mean that Google has formed any ties with AOL. I wonder when Google will add other features that Jabber supports such as Yahoo or chat rooms.
Instant Messaging Planet is reporting that JetBlue, in partnership with Yahoo will begin testing free in-flight wireless Internet access . The service will only allow access to Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo e-mail services. The new service will be limited to only to certain flights and not all. After seeing DirectTV on Frontier Airlines, I wondered how long it would take airlines to offer Internet access. Earlier attempts at this stalled due to high costs and user indifference. Maybe they priced it too high? Too bad there is no general web access though.
IRSeek, an Israeli startup, has begun hitting IRC chat rooms on several networks to log conversations in a web searchable format. According to IRC-Junkie.org, several networks including EFnet, DALnet, Freenode, QuakeNet and Undernet have been targeted thus far by IRSeek logging bots. The IRC community is not very happy about this intrusion to their communities. The management of the Freenode IRC network is planning legal action against IRSeek. IRC-Junkie.org stated that IRSeek has taken their search feature off of their site for the time being due to the uproar and I have verified that it is still not working. The company is still operating their website and are possibly still running their IRC network bots. I will be waiting to see how the IRC networks combat IRSeek if either through legal action or finding a way to block their bot clients.
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