Posts filed under 'Instant Messaging'
Today I was wondering what would make the perfect IM client for me. Hey, Isn’t this blog about VoIP? Yes it is but since more and more IM clients come with voice we see a merger of these programs. What I would like to see in an IM client:
- SIP compatible to connect to my landline voip service.
- Support for Google’s Gtalk audio chat.
- Support for Skype’s audio chat (probably never going to happen).
- Text chat to gtalk and msn.
- Support for shared folders like msn messenger.
- Support for custom emoticons (animated if possible).
- Clean interface.
- Store chatlog online (like in gtalk).
Is there already such a killer application out there? Please let me know or add your wishes to the wishlist in the comments.
Technorati : gtalk, msn, skype, voip
November 14th, 2006
Today Windows Live Messenger Beta became available for the public. You can download it here. For a (very) short review you can look at my other blog. The reason that I am mentioning it here is that it now comes with VoIP included. It’s not the first time that a big instant messenger client is including voip. As I wrote earlier, yahoo went there before.
As with Yahoo, you will be able to make PC-to-PC calls and buy credits (from Verizon) to call to normale phones.
I think that Skype will suffer a little from this in countries where usage of MSN Messenger is high, like here in the Netherlands.
It’s not for the first time that Microsoft includes VoIP. It was in Windows Messenger, vanished in MSN Messenger and now it is back!
Technorati : internet telephony, verizon, voip
May 9th, 2006
I was going to write that Yahoo has released a new beta of their messenger software, now including the ability to make PC-to-Phone calls “at ridiculously low rates “ (this is a quote from their homepage).
After trying out the new beta (version 7.5) myself, I decided not to pay too much attention to it. It’s just another propriety IM client extended with some locked-in voip termination service.
To make things worse, you won’t be able to make calls to other sip uri’s. Just to other yahoo-users or to POTS (after buying some credits from their Phone Out service). So you can forget calling to for example to freeworlddialup.
When are we going to get a descent IM client based on open standards (think Jabber, XMPP) that allows you to create (multiple) SIP accounts of your own choice.
If anyone knows of any, please drop me a note!
March 23rd, 2006
Wildfire Server is an open source jabber-based instant messenger server. What makes it special is that it is one of the first solutions that supports integration with Asterisk via the Asterisk-IM plug-in. This brings a whole lot of new possibilities to integrate telephony into your instant messaging.While it isn’t hard to setup, it can be a little too much work if you just want to play with it. Luckily for you, a guy named Serge has compiled an image for VMware Player that combines a preconfigured Asterisk, Wildfire Server and X-lite softphone. All you have to do is download the image and fire it up in windows. Make sure you read Serge’s article for instructions.
March 1st, 2006