Digsby Worth Checking Out

Digsby is a neat little communications program that combines IM, email and social networking websites all in one. I’ve been using Pidgin for my IM predominantly, but the addition of Twitter to Digsby makes it an attractive alternative.

For IM, Digsby handles AIM, Yahoo, Google talk, MSN, ICQ and Jabber. It seems to have most of the basic features you’d expect from an IM client and I haven’t encountered any problems yet.

You can add Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, AOL/AIM mail, POP or IMAP accounts. I’ve just used it with a Gmail account as a way to be alerted when there is incoming email, but I’m curious about the IMAP and POP functionality. One neat feature is the ability to send emails right from the IM window, without having to open another application or webpage.

For social networking, you can add your Facebook, Myspace or Twitter accounts. I currently just use Twitter, and Digsby provides me with updates to recent Twitter activity, and lets me update my status. If you use Facebook or Myspace, Digsby will alert you to new friend requests, messages and other activity.

With Twitter, the interface isn’t as customizable as Twhirl or Snitter, but so far has been more stable than either of those and doesn’t require AIR. Digsby’s Twitter pop-up notifications display all recent activity, placing @s first. There isn’t much customization available for the Twitter interface, but it handles the basics well.

For me the real strength of the program is having all these things tied together in one package. You can turn off pop up notifications and sound for any or all accounts if, for example, you only wanted to be alerted for emails and not Twitter, or you only wanted sound and no pop-ups.

Digsby is still in Beta and could use a few more features and options, but right now it behaves well and has been reliable. I’m impressed!

From IM To Microblogging - or: Twitter is the New AIM

When IM started gaining serious popularity years ago, it suffered from a problem of incompatibility with other IM services. AIM couldn’t talk to MSN, Yahoo IM, ICQ or others. Windows Messenger and Yahoo finally learned to talk to each other and now Google chat can connect to your AIM buddies in Gmail. Then came services like Trillian, Pidgin and Meebo allowing people to log into multiple services from one location, even if they didn’t talk directly to each other.

Now we’re seeing the same thing with Twitter, Pownce and other social media sites. Twitter is still ahead of Pownce with number of users and posts, but a few people have switched. A lot of people have accounts on both but only check Pownce occasionally.

For now, we have a problem. Once you add in other social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, things get even more complicated. I personally don’t use Facebook and LinkedIn; I do use Twitter but don’t always check Pownce every day. The point is that each person has their own preferred sites, and it can be difficult to keep track of who’s on what.

Microsoft and Yahoo came together. Google and AIM came together. The real glue that helped connect people with each other was the third party applications like Pidgin. I don’t see Pownce and Twitter coming together any time soon, but will a decent third party app come along to bridge the gap?

There’s a problem with that solution, however. Moving people away from your sites by using third party applications cuts out a lot of site-based advertising and other gimmicks. If people aren’t going to your page to use your service, you stand to lose out on revenue (if that was a goal of yours). Twitter and Pownce don’t use ads at this time, and so this point is a bit moot, but I think there may be a lesson in there somewhere.

Updating your social networking profile isn’t an easy task considering that you probably have more accounts on more sites than you can count on one hand. Keeping up with multiple socmed sites can be tedious. If you don’t keep up on several, you could miss out on interactions with friends.

Sometimes, too many choices can hinder us, and I think that’s what we’re seeing right now. The social media scene needs to consolidate and coordinate more. Functioning as part of a group rather than individuals just might produce better results for everyone involved.