messager

Microsoft: A year of IM pulls in $1.3 million for charity

Last year, Microsoft launched the "I'm Initiative," which donated nibbles of advertising revenue to 10 selected charities each time a Windows Live Messenger user started an instant message with the word "I'm." On Tuesday, after a year of the gimmick, Microsoft representatives announced that $1.3 million had been netted so far.

Bill Gates would be proud.

"Because of your enthusiasm, we're also excited to announce that we will be continuing this program," Windows Live Messenger product manager Dharmesh Mehta wrote in a blog post. "And with no set limit … Read more

Apple looks toward iPhone chat app

At its iPhone SDK event last month, Apple touted an adaption of AOL's instant-messaging client for the iPhone. Now comes news of Apple's own patent application for a chat feature.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published the application, titled "Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging," on March 6--the very same day Apple was providing details on its software development kit for the iPhone, including AOL's test version of the first "official" native Web chat for the gadget.

The news of the Patent Office's action was first reported by the AppleInsider site … Read more

Six Apart wrestles the social-media dragon

The Web might have just gotten one step closer to a universal "social dashboard" capable of managing an array of blogging, messaging, networking, and media applications. It's a small step, but still a move in the right direction.

Six Apart, the software company behind blogging platforms TypePad, Movable Type, and Vox, has launched a new Facebook application called "Blog It." Facebook members who install the application can post to multiple blogging services at one time, update their Facebook status in sync with micro-blogging services like Twitter, and have updates from the app appear in their Facebook Mini-Feeds.… Read more

Elusive 'Twitter ads' spotted in the wild...or not

This post was updated at 9:08 a.m. PDT to reflect the fact that Twitter has denied that it was testing advertisements.

If an ad shows up in a Twitter feed and no one's awake to see it, did it really appear?

Reports surfaced overnight on Monday that advertisements were appearing sporadically in some of the micro-messaging service's Web-based streams, suggesting that perhaps Twitter may be close to losing its punchline status as the Silicon Valley darling that hasn't earned a dime yet. A handful of blogs wrote about it, but it seems like most Twitter … Read more

Crowdstatus lets you micromanage your Twitter buddies

One thing sorely missing from Twitter is a way to clump together into groups people you're following. Enter Crowdstatus, a delightfully simple tool that places the latest status message from a Twitter user in a small box with his or her avatar. You can add as many people as you want and check in on them throughout the day as people update. Each grouping gets its own vanity URL and management page where you can add or delete users.

The tool was created by Darren Stuart, who incidentally created one of my favorite Facebook apps called "please stop sharing applications with me.&… Read more

For Facebook Chat, a quiet and cautious Sunday debut

Facebook chose a Sunday afternoon, when much of the tech blogger corps was pleasantly enjoying real life (we can hope), to start rolling out its previously announced instant-messaging client. That's likely no coincidence: this is a major new feature for the social-networking site, and debuting it on a weekend afternoon probably ensured a smoother integration.

A Facebook employee told me in the days before the launch that it was "a big challenge" to get ready to roll out Facebook Chat to the site's 67 million members. Because of that, Facebook has opted for a gradual rollout … Read more

Facebook Chat begins a staggered rollout

After the launch of Facebook Chat was promised last week, Facebook is finally rolling out the feature. Even though the release is limited at this time, Inside Facebook was lucky enough to get a look. It appears that the rollout is on a per-network basis, with reports coming in that many of the Ivy League schools and Stanford are among the first to have access.

Facebook Chat is the third prong of communication on Facebook, adding to the already existing Wall and Message features. Unlike most IM clients, it is built directly into the web page and is not a … Read more

Finnish minister the latest politician sunk by texting

Following a recent trend of politicians embroiled in text message-related sex scandals, Finland's foreign minister is facing calls for his resignation Saturday after a tabloid published a suggestive text message he had sent to an erotic dancer, Reuters is reporting.

Ilkka Kanerva sent about 200 text messages to the 29-year-old dancer and at first said they were related to her performing at his 60th birthday party, Reuters says. But on Friday he admitted the messages weren't appropriate.

A Finnish paper quoted him as saying, "I would not present them in Sunday school, but they are not totally … Read more

Soashable clones Meebo, adds open source

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Meebo must be awful flattered right now, because an open-source clone of what the service offered just a year or so ago has come up in the form of Soashable. Sure, it doesn't have the platform, group chat rooms, simple support for Google Talk and ICQ, or the some of the software extensions of the popular Web-based IM service, but if Pidgin is any indication of what can be done in the world of open-sourced IM, Soashable is off to a good start.

Besides the hosted Web app that supports … Read more