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Instant-messaging power users, rejoice: a barrier between two previously isolated realms of online chat is coming down.

A minor sidelight in the Yahoo-Google search ad deal announced Thursday is that the two companies "agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant-messaging services, bringing easier and broader communication to users," the companies said. They're not sharing further details at this stage, but it's safe to bet that means people on Yahoo's IM network will be able to chat with those on Google's and vice-versa.

That's a big step in the right direction.

IM is a useful if sometimes intrusive tool, especially in this day and age when the Internet has tightened ties among co-workers, family, and friends. But people and companies don't always use the same networks, meaning that power users either must run multiple IM programs or try to bridge the divide with multiprotocol packages such as Trillian, Adium, Digsby, Kopete, or Pidgin.

IM today is similar to the early days of electronic mail, when users couldn't send messages between incompatible services such as AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe. Happily, the Internet's SMTP standard for e-mail emerged victorious, and now we only need one e-mail address (leaving aside the issue of personal vs. work identities, but that's a story for another day).

A power user's plight
I'm one of those heavy IM users tormented by today's situation. I have to talk to people on Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and Google Talk. It's a pain having separate usernames for each service, but much worse is looking for software that centralizes IM for me.

I recognize I'm not a representative sample of the population at large. I have 797 buddies, many of them the same people represented on multiple services.

AOL said in a statement, in effect, that I am indeed an anomaly. "We have no evidence that interoperating with other consumer IM services is of great interest to AIM users," the company said.

But I've seen the problem worsen in the years I've used IM, and I believe mainstream people will encounter this problem with greater frequency as they change jobs, graduate from schools, meet new friends, and otherwise expand their social horizons.

Walled gardens
There are signs that these days are numbered. As Internet companies race to build rich communities and services on the Web, "walled gardens" have become widely disparaged as a relic.

Yahoo, for example, has pledged to expose formerly closed parts of its business through its Yahoo Open Strategy. And AOL is opening up AIM some, for example, letting Meebo and eBuddy link up.

But it'll take awhile to convince me that the IM walls are truly coming down.

For one thing, most of the progress to date has been through interoperability agreements that permit one service to link with another. That's like CompuServe building a custom gateway to translate and route e-mail from AOL--helpful, but symptomatic of the larger problem. The more IM services there are, the more gateways each service needs to work with the others, and more services are cropping up as companies such as MySpace, Skype, and Facebook add chat abilities.

What we really need is an IM communication standard. The obvious candidate is the XMPP protocol on which Google built its service but that none of the other major players use.

Google, unsurprisingly, shares my view. "The Web is based on open standards and protocols so users can use any browser on any operating system to visit any Web site. We think the open Web model ought to apply to IM," Seth Demsey, senior product manager for Google Talk, said in a statement.

Of course, it's a lot easier for underdogs to endorse standards, and Google has 1 percent share of IM users worldwide, according to ComScore figures in April.

Interoperability isn't easy
To be fair, IM interoperability isn't an easy technical problem to tackle for mammoth services with millions of users and messages. There also are privacy issues when one service is sharing data and buddy lists with another.

More complicated are higher-level features and services that IM companies have added atop basic text chat: status messages, avatars, file transfer, voice and video chat, message forwarding to mobile phones. I think there's still value to unifying basic text chat even if higher-level features remain fragmented.

Then, of course, there are business reasons to keep things separate. Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft all display ads on their services, and AOL is trying to make its service into a foundation on which programmers will create online applications. Opening up IM connections to other services means, for example, that someone using AIM might not see the ads displayed on the AIM software.

I can't help but wonder, though, if a unified IM landscape might spur faster growth and more extensive use of IM services--factors that mean those people using popular chat software could spend even more time gazing at ads.

Other interoperability deals
There are some other interoperability deals besides the Yahoo-Google one announced Thursday. Most notably, users of Microsoft and Yahoo instant-messenger services can link up and chat if they're using recent versions of the software.

And there could be more progress on this front: "Microsoft looks forward to continuing our interoperability reach to customers worldwide," Brian Hall, Microsoft's general manager of Windows Live, said in a statement.

Users of Apple iChat can link with AIM and Google.

Google's situation is complicated, in part because it has multiple IM options. The company offers Google Talk in two incarnations: client software that can be installed on Windows machines and a gadget that runs in a Web browser. Those versions can work with any XMPP-based chat service. (They're not popular, so you probably haven't heard of them.)

Google also has Gmail chat, which runs alongside the company's Web-based e-mail service. It can work with AIM.

So tell me: Am I an anomaly because I use multiple chat networks? And how do you solve your IM needs? Does a single IM client suffice, or do you use two to cover the bases? Send an e-mail to stephen.shankland@cnet.com or share your opinion in the feedback section below.

AOL plans to launch a new program called AIM Money on Tuesday that lets programmers write applications that run in the AOL Instant Messenger buddy list--and lets programmers get a cut of any resulting revenue.

The move is made possible through use of an open interface in AIM 6.8, another new development. Version 6.8 also includes "mini-applications" that run at the bottom of the AIM buddy list window; 150 new CBS radio stations in AOL Radio; and restoration of the ability to save and import buddy lists, a feature that helps move a to a new IM identity.

As the computing industry has discovered the possibilities of applications running on the Internet, companies are rushing to curry favor with programmers hoping those companies' online offerings. Other examples of the idea are Facebook, Google and other members of the OpenSocial consortium, and the Yahoo Open Strategy.

Ultimately, richer applications can mean more users, more activity, more advertising--though the more lucrative elements of the strategy is largely rhetorical than real at this stage for many. AIM, however, has a well-populated list of active users, unlike many start-ups.

AOL announced the interface in March with its Open AIM 2.0 developer program, which lets programmers write software such as the mini-applications that plug into AIM's own chat software, bots that can communicate with humans on the network, Web-based AIM interfaces, and software that show when AIM members are available online through the service.

The revenue for programmers comes through sharing money generated by an advertisement that can appear along with programs that use the new AIM features. AOL serves advertisements using its Platform-A ad network and pays developers through PayPal.

To use the AIM API (application programming interface), developers have to use two of five AIM elements. The ad is one. The other four are bundling the AIM browser toolbar; providing access to AIM Expressions that customize the AIM interface; displaying the AIM Dashboard start page; and displaying buddy info.

Yahoo Messenger 9 offers a more elaborate friend list and can display videos and photos in the chat window.

(Credit: Yahoo)

You can't take it with you, at least when it comes to your social graph.

But with a new beta version of Yahoo Messenger 9 software (download it for Windows) released Thursday, users have new options for reconstructing networks of friends and contacts they've built elsewhere.

The new beta of Yahoo Messenger 9 can help user invite contacts on AOL, Google's Gmail and Orkut, Microsoft's Hotmail, MySpace, and other online services to connect through the Yahoo service. Version 9 also includes a special group of all people in your Yahoo address book, helping to connect with contacts users may have stored elsewhere within Yahoo itself.

Also tying more deeply into the rest of Yahoo, the new beta can be used to reflect some other activities within the network--for example, when somebody spotlights a Web site of interest using Yahoo Buzz.

"We'll add more types of updates in the future," said product manager Sarah Bacon in a blog posting about the new beta.

Yahoo Messenger 9 is intended for use on Windows XP, in contrast to the more obviously named Yahoo Messenger for Vista (download it for Windows Vista). The final version of the Yahoo Messenger 9 is due in the third quarter, Yahoo said. The Mac equivalent is scheduled to be released by the end of the year.

Also new in the beta is a better interface for setting status messages--even if you're away from your IM software, Yahoo said. And links to games present in Yahoo Messenger 8 has made its way to version 9, so users can play pool, checkers, and others. However, only those with version 8.1 or later can play games with those using the version 9 beta, Yahoo said.

Yahoo Messenger's icon, a frighteningly happy face, reflects the fact that people have a whole section of their brains just for processing facial information. Yahoo is tapping into that visual cortex a little more directly with the new beta, which uses larger emoticons.

For further information, check Yahoo's blog about the new beta or a Messenger 9 beta demo video.

A recent Gartner study estimates that 189 billion mobile messages have been sent by U.S. mobile-phone subscribers in 2007. It forecasts 301 billion mobile messages sent in 2008.

If correct, those figures would still account for only a small fraction of the 2.3 trillion messages to be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (a 19.6 percent increase from the 2007 total of 1.9 trillion messages). Asia is the biggest mobile-messaging market worldwide. China is in the lead, with approximately 560 billion SMS messages sent in 2007, followed by the Philippines' 430 billion and Japan's 190 billion.

The vast majority of the 189 billion mobile messages to be sent in the United States are expected to be SMS text messages, with an average use of about two SMS messages per U.S. subscriber per day. That is similar to the level of SMS activity in the United Kingdom in 2005 and still only at the global average of 2.1 SMS messages per day. The average number in the U.K. today is six SMS messages per day. Singapore is at 12, and the Philippines even at 15.

While the U.S. is still lagging behind Asia and Europe, its adoption of SMS is obviously accelerating. Gartner predicts that this will further propel mobile-payment solutions, as SMS will continue to be the dominant channel for mobile payments.

The analyst house believes that the number of consumers making payments using their mobile phones is set to soar from 32.9 million in 2008 to 103.9 million in 2011.

Despite the continued growth of SMS usage, however, Gartner expects growth rates to slow as direct mobile connections are becoming increasingly cannibalized by mobile-IM communities and social-network portals.

As I wrote before, there is huge potential for an elegant, seamless, cross-platform, and cross-media IM solution that enables the ideal of the "never-ending conversation."

It looks like Apple might again be the first mover here. The company is apparently developing a chat application for the iPhone, as revealed recently through a patent application that describes a "portable electronic device with a touch-screen display, comprising (a) means for displaying a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person in a chronological order." That's basically the description of an UI for an iPhone IM application.

CNBC analyst Jim Cramer thinks that an iPhone IM application is going to be to instant messaging what the iPod was to the Walkman. And Ars Technica is not alone when it suspects that most of the iPhone users will probably value "a way to use instant messaging without using up their SMS message quota."

While the iPhone currently relies on SMS, Apple could add AIM, Jabber, or Twitter to the interface and thus become the de facto universal conversation enabler. However, building a native IM application (and adding third-party chat applications) could create conflicts with iPhone operators that might be concerned about losing potential SMS revenue, if users sidestep SMS by using IM programs.

We will soon find out. The momentum is building up toward a possible unveiling of the next-generation iPhone at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference on June 9.

Update 4:30 p.m. PT May 1: I corrected the download link and a reference to the Messenger 9 beta for Windows XP, a separate product from the Messenger for Vista beta.

Yahoo has released its Windows Vista beta of its instant-messaging software, adding support for voice chat and cell phone text messages that were missing from the preview version that's been out since December.

Yahoo's updated messenger program for Vista adds voice dialing as well as eye candy known as "Voice Visualizations."

(Credit: Yahoo)

The Yahoo Messenger for Vista beta software supports computer-to-computer calls as well as calls to and from phones, Yahoo said Wednesday. It also can communicate with cell phone text messages sent with SMS (short message service) technology.

The software is available at Yahoo's download site.

The software is one of the few Vista-specific applications around, taking advantage of the graphics display abilities of the Windows Presentation Foundation underpinnings of Vista. My comrade Ina Fried was favorably impressed by the interface.

Other features in the version include vector-based graphics for better independence from variable monitor pixel sizes; a Windows Sidebar gadget version; integration with Yahoo address book; integration with Flickr for photo sharing; the ability to view videos and photos sent as Web page links in the chat window; customizable skins; tabbed conversations to cut down on window clutter. Why, I don't know, but I avoid tabbed IM windows even though I use tabbed browser Windows extensively. Go figure.

AOL is getting a lot of credit for "opening" its ubiquitous AIM instant-messaging software "to open source." However, like Microsoft did recently by revealing documentation to its APIs and protocols, all AOL has done here is open access to OSCAR protocols necessary to create open-source implementations.

This is great, but consider just how much more AOL could have done--and for its benefit--such as open-sourcing its instant-messaging server and client software.

Think about it. What revenue does AOL protect by keeping its IM software closed? Sure, there's advertising revenue from the obnoxious ads it sprays around the client, but that is thinking far too small.

The real money is in abundance. Or in "adoption-led markets," to borrow Sun Microsystems' nomenclature.

Valleywag largely pans it, while Webware thinks it has promise.

Regardless, the central premise of Yahoo's upcoming universal-messaging application dubbed MyM is clear. According to Webware, MyM:

...appears to be joining several Web services together. Included are instant messaging clients like AIM and MSN, along with social services like MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Friendster.

I like it. For one thing, I get tired of scattering my IM activities--and my company largely works over IM--among different chat programs. That's why I use Adium. But given the promise of also connecting social-networking services with IM, I become much more interested in what Yahoo is up to.

After all, isn't the point of social-networking sites like Facebook.com to connect people? If so, is the best way to connect people really to have them "superpoking" each other all day? I'd rather be able to actually chat with them.

The new Yahoo Messenger toolbar lets you send an instant message, text message or call a contact with one click.

(Credit: Yahoo)

Yahoo is launching a new version of its popular Yahoo Messenger on Tuesday that lets you forward phone calls and instant messages and watch videos and view photos with friends, among other enhancements. But probably the most popular thing will be the new emoticons.

Yahoo Messenger 9.0 has a redesigned interface with new "skin" background designs and new emoticons for expressions like "thumbs up," "thumbs down," and "rock on," (yes, the little yellow face ball is holding up its second and fourth fingers in the rock-star pose).

Beyond the surface, some of the changes are even more impressive. For instance, it's easier to call, text or IM contacts by simply hovering over the contact name and clicking. You can also click an arrow to the left of the contact and see a larger version of their avatar, contact them, start an e-mail session, and edit their information. And you can send a text message to someone's phone using your computer keyboard. These communications features were here before but were just not as apparent or easy as they are now.

You can also forward offline IMs to a mobile device and forward incoming phone calls to a phone number.

Sharing online map links doesn't open a new browser window, but displays the map in the IM window, allowing you to zoom and scroll around.

You can also send videos from YouTube, Yahoo Video and other sources, and you and your contact can watch the synchronized video via a sharing window, pausing to chat or replay.

The same thing with photos from Flickr or your desktop. You and your contact can view them together via a sharing window.

And file transfers between contacts can be up to two gigabytes in size, double the previous size limit. If you have Norton antivirus on your desktop, the files can be scanned for viruses as well.

Some changes will be instantly noticeable. For instance, the contacts have two lines now, with the status message on its own line. But you can condense that back to one line if you like. You can also insert emoticons within the status messages--like I could say I'm "in a meeting" and have the "sleepy" emoticon next to it with the "zzzzs" trailing up.

Yahoo is expanding the service to more countries and languages, too. People in Thailand and Indonesia now can instant message in their native language, and in India they have nine new languages to choose from. The service has been localized in six new markets, bringing the total to 25 markets reached.

Now, how do you say "Rock on!" in Hindi?

Update Oct 30: Yahoo has explained what it meant by "unlimited file transfer,"--while people will be able to send as many files as they want, the size of files they will be able to send at one time is limited to two gigabytes.

With the majority of the Democrats caving in to the Bush administration's demands for full immunity for the telecom companies for-profit collusion in the NSA's illegal wiretapping program, it seems to be clear that the Fourth Amendment and federal antiwiretapping laws are no longer enough to keep our communications secure. Laws stating that "thou shalt not listen to your customers phone calls" no longer seem to have any bite. Or at least, they don't as long as teleco lobbying coupled with massive political contributions can turn once critical senators into kindly old men willing to forgive and forget.

AT&T: Your World. Delivered. To the NSA

(Credit: Electronic Frontier Foundation)

Thus, now that AT&T and Verizon are free to provide the NSA with a full copy of all Internet traffic that flows over their networks, I thought that perhaps it'd be a good idea to discuss proactive technical solutions that users can utilize to protect their own privacy. The primary focus of today's blog post is on one small area of user privacy, but one which is perhaps the least well known by the average joe, yet which is extremely vulnerable: instant messaging. The question to be answered today is: how can nontechnical users secure their own instant-messaging conversations such that an attacker is unable to listen in (be it the government or a nosy neighbor sniffing the wireless network from next door).

The major IM networks, which include AOL IM/iChat, MSN, and Google Talk (when using the gmail embedded chat function) all send data over the clear. Using IM over an unencrypted wireless network (such as at a coffee shop or hotel lobby) is an open invitation for nasty folks to read your conversations. Those people using the downloadable Google Talk client will at least have their conversations encrypted between their own computers and Google's servers - but that doesn't solve the problem of the NSA forcing/paying Google to hand over your data. Likewise, AOL confirmed in 2005 that if presented with a court order, it would let the government eavesdrop on IM conversations between customers.

The solution then, is to use an encrypted instant-messaging program--one made by a third party and not one of the major IM networks. That is, a software client with which the conversation is encrypted from one user's computer all the way to the recipient--and not just to the central servers of the IM network. While the popular Trillian multinetwork client does offer encryption, its design is flawed, and is subject to a number of attacks. The tool of choice for privacy-conscious geeks everwhere is a protocol known as Off The Record (OTR). This scheme, designed by a team of security researchers including professors Ian Goldberg and Nikita Borisov, provides a number of really cool features. The benefits of OTR include:

• Encryption: No one else can read your instant messages.
• Authentication: You are assured the correspondent is who you think it is.
• Deniability: The messages you send do not have digital signatures that are checkable by a third party. Anyone can forge messages after a conversation to make them look like they came from you. However, during a conversation, your correspondent is assured the messages he sees are authentic and unmodified.
• Perfect forward secrecy: If you lose control of your private keys (such as if your computer is hacked, for example), no previous conversation is compromised.

An encrypted conversation in Adium

(Credit: The Adium Dev Team)

The OTR team don't actually produce its own instant-messaging client. Instead, they have released an open-source library that other IM programs can include--which hopefully means that as more and more clients adopt it, users will be able to conduct safe and encrypted conversations with people who use an IM program different than their own. Right now, the OTR team distribute a plugin for Pidgin, the popular multiplatform IM client. Adium, a popular IM client for Mac OS X, has OTR support built in. There are third-party plugins for the Kopete, Miranda and Trillian IM clients. Best of all: OTR is IM-protocol-independent. That is, once you have an OTR-enabled client installed, you can communicate with friends on different IM networks, be it AIM, Google Talk or others, as long as your friends also have OTR-friendly IM software.

Linux and Windows users are probably best off using the Pidgin IM client, which works with all of the popular IM networks and then installing the OTR plugin. For Linux users, it should be as simple as installing the Pidgin-OTR package with your respective package manager. Windows users will want to download the Pidgin-OTR plugin from the OTR Web site. Mac users: you're in luck. You can be lazy, and simply download Adium, which has OTR out of the box.

Once you have an OTR-enabled client installed, its as simple as clicking on the lock icon in any conversation window. You'll be asked to accept an encryption key the first time you chat--which you should verify with your pal by some form of non-IM conversation (the phone, in person, etc). After that, all future communications with that person should be encrypted without any more work. That's it. Secure communications, free from prying next-door neighbors or privacy-invading spooks.