Do the IM protocol wars even matter? Adium and the continued *client* unification of IM...

Do you care any more about zillion different IM services? Do you care about the IM protocol wars that have plagued the usage of IM for the last years?

Odds are that if you are an IM user like me, you probably don't. Why not? Simple... we've unified the IM services on the client side and basically stopped caring about the various services and protocols.

I was reminded of this fact this morning when I received a message saying that an update was available for Adium on my Mac that solved a really annoying disconnection problem with Yahoo!Messenger. (And if you are a Yahoo IM user, you really need to get the 1.3.2b1 beta.)

[NOTE: An equivalent to Adium for Windows or Unix/Linux users is Pidgin.]

Somewhat ironically, there was a discussion going on in a Skype groupchat in which I participate about the various IM protocols and whether anyone really used GTalk, etc. Since I was updating Adium at the time, I took a moment to look at all the different protocols that Adium now supports... as seen in the screenshot on the right side of this post. If I look at my own usage, I use Adium to unify:

• AIM (two accounts)
• MSN/Windows Live Messenger
• Yahoo!Messenger (two accounts)
• Google Talk
• Jabber (two more other than GTalk)
• LiveJournal
• Facebook
• Bonjour

All of those in one client with one directory of users and one window for chats (each on their own tab - and yes, I could have chats in separate windows but I generally choose not to do so).

It's a beautiful thing.

Now you might say... so why do you have all these services, anyway? Well, I've been online since the mid-1980's and generally my work has always involved keeping up with new technology, so I've always dabbled in various services and slowly you develop this accretion of new IM accounts - each that different friends and others use. At one point I did run multiple clients but now just for my own sanity I use just one IM client (actually two, but more on that below).

THE ENTERPRISE ANGLE

The curious aspect that caught my attention was the support Adium has for enterprise IM systems. The list directly includes Lotus Sametime and Novell GroupWise. Jabber support can of course work with internal Jabber servers and SIP/SIMPLE support could work with platforms supporting SIMPLE. Does that include Microsoft OCS? I don't know, but it would be interesting if it did.

What's great about all this is that you again have a single IM client that lets you have a single directory for corporate contacts as well as personal contacts. Adium's interface nicely lets you have a single entry for a person with multiple IM contacts, so you can unify your directory to be able to reach people in different contexts.

THE DOWN SIDE

The down side of a single client is that of course you are in the old "jack of all trades, master of none" scenario. You can receive IM messages from all the various services. You can send IM messages to them. But you can't necessarily use all the features of the given service. You have one set of status states, which may or may not map to all the status states available on your service (for instance, maybe the IM service has a status "out for dinner"). I haven't tried it with recent Adium builds, but in the past when I wanted to do an encrypted Jabber session, I had to switch to using Psi. I haven't tried file transfer using the various services via Adium, so I don't know how that works. I'm not aware that voice and video works over those services via Adium. Each IM service tries to differentiate with unique features - and they aren't always supported by all-in-one clients like Adium.

The other down side is "status messages" or "mood messages" that you can set in the IM clients. I have absolutely no idea what my status message in GTalk is, for instance, because I never use it in its native form in a web browser or as a standalone client. I have no idea what my MSN advisory message is for the same reason. Now maybe there's a way to set that in Adium which I don't know about... but maybe not. It's the price you pay for using a unified client.

Now, on the plus side, you never see the ads that IM services wrap their own IM clients in. (Which of course is a down side for the service provider.)

THE MISSING IM SERVICE

If you look at that long list of IM services with which Adium can interconnect, there is one obvious glaring omission:

Skype

When I wrote earlier that I actually have to run two IM clients, it's because Skype does not allow Adium (or other all-in-one IM clients) to interconnect to its network. So I run two IM clients:

• Skype to IM with Skype contacts
• Adium to IM with contacts on all the other services

Now the reality is that I can't see technically how a client like Adium would join into the P2P clouds that make up Skype groupchats. Skype's P2P architecture is very different from the server-based architecture of all the services listed above. So it may be that such an interconnect may not be possible for group chats... and since I use those extensively, I might always have to be running the Skype client natively. Still, there might be a way to interconnect via SIP/SIMPLE... and perhaps that's something Skype will consider as part of the larger Skype interconnect issues.

SO DO WE CARE ABOUT IM PROTOCOL WARS?

I don't. I've opted out of the battle by using a unified IM client. Sure, I may lose out on some of the unique features of the different services... but I have one directory and one way to send and receive IM messages.

What about you? Do you use a unified IM client like Adium or Pidgin? Or do you run multiple clients? Or do you only use one service?

P.S. Walt Mossberg over at the Wall Street Journal had a post on this issue reviewing some other clients back in August.

Technorati Tags: im, adium, pidgin, yahoo, googletalk, aim, skype, jabber, collaboration

Comments

[Derrick Kwa]

Yes, there is a benefit to a unified client such as Adium. I personally use Pidgin often. But I do think that the protocols still matter.

Here's why. To use something like Adium or Pidgin, you still require all the various accounts. If you want to chat with GTalk users using Aidium/Pidgin, you need a Google account. If you want to chat with Yahoo users, you need a Yahoo account, etc. And that gets difficult to maintain. If you want to make the most a tool like Adium, you would require accounts everywhere.

It is the best solution so far, but I would say protocols matter if they can work on getting true unification - like what Windows Live achieved with Yahoo. That is, the ability to use a single account and chat with users from anywhere. As I'm sure you know, you can now add Yahoo contacts to your Windows Live account, and chat with them on Windows Live Messenger. That, to me, is what true unification is about, and I would love to see that extended to other services - GTalk, AIM, Skype, etc.

And so, yes, I think softwares like Adium and Pidgin are really useful and good solutions at the moment. But we should not ignore the protocols, we should be working at unifying the protocols themselves, so that a unified client isn't even that necessary.

[luca]

I was just talking about ths with a friend of mine today. I had him on my contact list (Adium) but I didn't really care what IM was he using. I need a name to click on my contact list, that's the only important thing.

[spg]

it does matter and a lot. the reason is to attract all those people who do not use IM at all. i have several friends and numerous family members who are very into very long back and forth email threads with one line back and fourths messages typed seconds or minutes apart. these people would be better served using IM instead of email. but the complexity of either multiple clients or the complex configuration of a multi client app is just too much. they will stick to email. these are also the sort of people who although they use technology do not like talking about technology and therefore would see the very idea of a conversation about which IM client there friend uses to be out of line with their normal personality.

[Larry]

I've used Pidgin/gaim for several years. It's great that I can communicate on whatever (almost) service I want with one client. It is still a nuisance to keep track of all my accounts on these various services. But how do you "advertise" your IM address? Do I list them all: "I can be reached via IM at phoneyfarmer on AIM, Yahoo!, GTalk,...."? Or do users keep trying until they figure out which ones I'm using? It's still messy.

[Seth]

I have been using gaim/pidgin, and more recently Adium on mac for at least 3-4 years now. It would annoy me to no end having to run multiple IM clients.

My other primary motivation for running Pidgin & Adium is support for the OTR encryption plugin. I can breath a little easier and communicate more freely when I know that it will be difficult for the criminals in govt to spy on me.