AOL IM was down today for a bit. I found out because I got an instant message saying “Is AIM down for you?” IMs to friends confirmed that AIM went down for a while this afternoon.
In addition to AIM, I use Jabber, an open standard IM protocol that lets anyone run a server. That means there’s no centralized server to go down. It’s something to consider, especially if you use your IM for business.
Want to get started with Jabber? If you have your own domain name, ask your hosting provider if they do Jabber hosting too. I know Dreamhost and Zettai both provide free Jabber hosting (I am not currently a customer of either, but have been happy with both for web hosting).
If you don’t have your own domain name, you can download a Jabber client (iChat in OS X 10.4 supports Jabber out of the box, I prefer Adium
and I hear good things about GAIM from Windows users) and sign up for an account on Jabber.org or another open server.
Or if you already have a Gmail account, go download Google Talk and you’re all set. (Thank you for opening up, Google.)
The point is, you can be self-sufficient with your instant messaging and it isn’t difficult. Go on and try something new.
If you’ve tried Jabber in the past and decided it wasn’t for you, go on and add all the people @gmail.com to your contact list. Imagine how surprised they’ll be to see your Jabber ID show up, it might just convince them that they don’t need to be locked into a single company’s IM network.
Thus concludes today’s commons propaganda.
4 responses to “AIM Down”
Not only is gaim great for windows users, but for just about everyone. It runs on more operating systems and supports more protocols then any other client that I know of. And the list of plugins is excelent also. The best one in my opinion is of couse OTR Messaging which I try and get everyone that I converse with to set up as I enjoy security.
http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/
Actually, Adium uses libgaim and wraps it up in a GUI that is better for OS X.
Jabber IM has been great for our office. My company had previously used a corporate version of Microsoft Instant Messenger, but we got bought by a larger company and new bosses killed it. So, I did a little digging and ended up recommending that we use a jabber client/server as our local replacement. It works great! We’re using the Wildfire server and Spark/Gaim clients. Serves a software development group of about 80 folks.
If you’re looking for a very practical reason to use Jabber, consider this. With Jabber people can send you messages when you’re offline and you’ll promptly receive them when you come online again.
Thanks for the plug george. 🙂