Convergence on IM and email - following Ed’s posting linking to Scott that didn’t allow comments
Tags :Sametime Instant Messaging
First, this is one issue with blogging. Not everyone allows trackbacks or comments and your own comments sometimes get lost in huge threads of others. I prefer to rant on my own blog to solicit feedback and reach readers the other bloggers may not. So read this whole ramble as it jumps around.
Ok, Scott brings up an interesting point about IM becoming email without some of the functionality of archiving and foldering wrapped around it. I say this all depends on how you look at it. With the ability to save chat logs by date or who the conversation was with, that is a form. Add in some indexing ability and you have searching right away. Whether or not a central server is in the mix is no matter (as Scott points out that is more a store and forward mechanism). But without that store and forward, things like Yahoo would be less functional to get messages from when you were offline.
Now, it would be great is Yahoo would see that and convert that to an email that has some intelligence wrapped around it to know you prefer to be notified in some manner. That leads to mobile IM capabilities across numerous devices. Blackberry can log into all the messenger services, including Sametime. Windows Mobile devices can log into everything. So there is no real time you have to be offline if you desire. I almost forgot. Go here to see a nice layout of what different packages can do acorss platforms. You have to scroll the whole page but a nice layout that someone spent time doing.
Scott goes on to mention email will soon die off with IM being the form. I tend to think the convergence of the two will be seamless, with the capabilities of both being integrated. Spam is already present in IM and will only grow as devices hook into it.
IM is replacing email for the younger groups because of the ease of usage and communication, the sense of relationship it brings and the integration into many facets of their daily lives. IM is now used as a selling point of cell phone abilities and chat takes the place of what kids did with the phone years ago. Then there was the ability to have 3-way calls on phones. Now there is n-way chats. It grows.
So go back to Ed's thread to read the tossing of ideas there in asynchronous mode
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On Monday, July 17th, 2006 by Chris Miller
