Messenger convergence

Anuj,an engineering student,is a netoholic. From working on his assignments to downloading music and playing video games,he spends most of his waking hours in the virtual world.
Sidharth,who works with an MNC,cannot imagine work without his multiple mail accounts,he juggles between his personal and official IDs to get through his day’s work.
They are among the new breed of youngsters who prefer to be in constant touch with friends through social networking sites,keeping them informed of their current “status” wherever they are.

Millions of Net users now log in to Instant Messaging (IM) services from PCs and phones to chat,exchange text messages and share files. But,since almost everyone has multiple accounts these days,there has been a surge in demand for cross-platform communication tools that support multiple accounts and do not need to be downloaded or installed on to your PC.
One such in-browser messenger that supports multiple accounts is meebo.com. Once you log onto the site,you have the option to sign into Google Talk,Yahoo Messenger and Facebook chat,among others. Meebo even has a mobile version designed for iPhone and Android phones.

It is not just the one-window function that has made applications like Meebo popular. In most cases,these applications are used to bypass firewalled networks. Since popular IM clients are banned in most organisations and educational institutes,in-browser applications help users log in without the network administrator’s knowledge.

Sidharth says that while offices block IMs fearing it would affect the efficiency of employees and distract them,they can be useful in official work as well. “With IMs it is easier to share files and documents or get clarifications or confirmations. This is why many offices have the instant messaging facility integrated with the official mail on the Local Area Network,” he says.
Other in-browser applications include ebuddy.com,imo.im,communicationtube.com,koolim.com. Even Yahoo and MSN now have in-browser IMs which can be accessed by logging on to webmessenger.yahoo.com or webmessenger.msn.com.
—BHARTI BEDI