I have an issue with the new AIM 5.5 and Weatherbug agreement
Tags :Rant
I was reading some
info on-line (as usual) and saw
that AIM has reached an agreement with WeatherBug to integrate their client
features into the chat client.
Fish told internetnews.com
the WeatherBug add-on was part of a larger plan to expand the use of IM
beyond text-chatting and to find revenue opportunities from products that
have historically been available for free. Among home and work users, instant
messaging has become one of the most widely used communications tool. But
outside of embedding advertising on buddy lists and chat windows, revenue
generation from the application has been limited.
Now let's discuss why I have an issue so
far. Keep in mind I have not seen the EULA yet, but I have good feelings
where this is going.
- Weatherbug has been listed time and time again as spyware software. I am not too keen on installing known spyware with my IM client
- Where is this revenue coming from? If I want integrated weather they want money? Why not just use weather.com and deal with the pop-ups for free weather. Or get the nice little framed window you can put on web pages?
- Will the chat client lead to revenue ads in each message you send? Then you have to purchase an ad free client from those networks? Can you imagine the revenue they could obtain from the advertisers coupled with the users that purchase ad free clients? That is mind boggling.
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On Monday, May 3rd, 2004 by Chris Miller