im

Web-based instant-messaging company Meebo has taken a new step forward: bringing its IM technology to partner sites. This fall, Meebo will start powering IM "buddy lists" on a handful of social-media sites so that you can chat with your friends who use those services. They're calling it Community IM.

Right now, the partners announced are the MC Hammer-backed DanceJam, movie fan site Flixster, teen social sites MyYearbook and Piczo, MTV Networks' AddictingGames, SparkArt, women's blog network Sugar, and Tagged.

Altogether, that's more than 54 million users worldwide for Meebo, according to ComScore. But that list … Read more

IT managers are almost as worried about what sensitive corporate data is leaking out of the company as they are about malware infections from the Web, according to a new survey.

Nearly 40 percent of IT staff at mid to large companies in North America said they believed that unintentional leaks by employees are a bigger threat to the security of their data than spyware or malicious software, according to a survey of 109 IT decision makers conducted over the Web last month by Osterman Research for FaceTime, a company that sells tools that allow companies to easily monitor and … Read more

Whatever you do, don't run that .exe file from "Chunkylover53," an alias for Homer Simpson.

Years ago, fans of The Simpsons added "Chunkylover53" to their AIM buddy list after learning that the writer-producer of the show was responding to fans in the voice of Homer from "Chunkylover53@aol.com."

Since then, the screen name has been inactive, until a few days ago when Chunkylover53's "Away" message appeared, prompting people to click on a link and run an executable in order to see "a *new* Internet-only exclusive Simpson's episode.&… Read more

Fulfilling a feature available previously with jailbreak applications, AOL is offering a free instant-messaging client, available through the AppStore, for the iPhone. In our brief testing, the client was a snap to configure, and worked well, but exhibited a few freezes.

When the AIM application is first launched, you are presented with options to use either the AOL instant messaging service or MobileMe. Once you've made your selection, however, we couldn't find an easy way to go back and configure another account.

Buddy lists are displayed with icons, status messages, and the typical blue iPhone interface arrow, which … Read more

For more than a decade, the Internet has suffered from multiple incompatible communication standards for instant messaging. Now it looks like Yahoo, one of the major IM players, is open to breaking the logjam.

I'm a power user of IM who struggles to find software that supports chatting with people on the four main IM networks: AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google. Today's situation, for me at least, is like having to own four e-mail programs for different networks or four telephones for incompatible phone systems.

So I was encouraged by words from Scott Dietzen, Yahoo's new head of communications products including Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail. … Read more

There are a few multinetwork IM clients for mobile phones, but JiveTalk is the one I keep coming back to on the BlackBerry Curve. It may not have the translation engine of Shape Service's more established IM+ All-in-One Messenger (all platforms), but it does have the emoticons, some file-sharing, and a more generous trial period than both IM+ All-in-One-Messenger and Mundu IM (all platforms), another excellent choice. JiveTalk costs about $30 for a lifetime license and is free for iPhone users.

I'm In Like With You, a social-network-turned-gaming-site that caught a brief flurry of press for its eye-popping design when it launched, has just closed a $1.5 million round of venture funding led by Spark Capital. It's the first funding the site has received since its angel round last year.

In addition to Spark, the round includes current investors Baseline Ventures, Betaworks, and veteran investor Ron Conway, as well as an investment from Netscape and Ning founder Marc Andreessen.

The funding round was widely rumored as the site--having failed to live up to the hype it first generated … Read more

After the sophistication of desktop chatting, mobile instant messaging services often tend to look like rough, rickety wire frames. Not so for AOL's first house-made application for mobile phones, a rich AIM client for Windows Mobile phones versions 5 and 6.

Released earlier this month, the IM application is in beta stages and there are plenty of known issues, including the one that number-locks the keypad on T-Mobile Dash phones and made for a dead-end first attempt. Past that obstacle, AIM for Windows … Read more

Digsby said Monday that the next version of its multi-network instant-messaging software will be better. That's none too soon for those of us desperate for a better multi-protocol IM program.

I'm a very active IM user, and I've been trying Digsby as the latest possible solution to my problem of incompatible instant-messaging networks. However, a brief honeymoon period was quickly replaced by frustration as my computer began freezing up for literally 30 seconds on some occasions upon arrival of a message from a new chat buddy.

According to Digsby, though, a new version could make me happier. … Read more