This week marked the end of an era. Meebo, THE premiere online instant messaging service that was purchased by Google earlier this year has finally closed its doors. It’s a sad day for everyone that used its service as Google bought them for the talent and to use them elsewhere with no thought to the MILLIONS of users who actually used the service. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for the folks at Meebo for getting a reward for the amazing software that they create – I’m just sad for the rest of us.
So where can you turn? Well let’s rewind it back to before Meebo became the top dog. I was using a little web service known as imo that, while doing well, was still in its early phases. These days? Well let’s just say imo is all grown up and provides a top notch instant messaging solution for the masses.
It’s currently supporting 12 different IM networks to cover all of the major players (Skype, AIM, Facebook, GTalk, Yahoo, Hyves, MSN, Steam, Vkontakte, Myspace and Jabber). For the messenger on the go (and no IMing while driving!) there are mobile apps for Android, iPhone and Blackberry to fulfill your need to be connected wherever you may be. Finally you don’t even need to create an imo account to use its service! While it streamlines it you can connect directly to any of its instant message services through its login!
So why is this one the big deal as far as I’m concerned? Well let’s just say for everyone who decided to download their chat logs from Meebo there is a way to import them directly into an imo account! Yes, that’s right chatters – you can still easily reference all of your past conversations if you had made the call to save your logs!
So what else do we have past the standard features? It has built in: chat groups, voice IM’s, file sharing, audio and video chat, AND free voice calling on Android based phones with iOS devices on the way. Free calling? Yes please!
As much as I love the website I still have to lay down the negatives as well. Everything has something working against it and imo is no exception. So what’s wrong with it? The interface that I just touted how much I love.
Honestly I’m nitpicking at this point. Why you may ask with a superior option to choose the interface style that like is the interface a negative? Well when everything else work’s so perfectly I can’t help but point out that it’s a little too simple and lacks the ability for color changes. It’s also too simple in the viewpoint that it lacks in detail and also should be more easily switched between modes. For colors I’m someone who likes a ‘light’ but not ‘white’ interface for a chat client. It’s a personal preference but if we had the option to change the general feel of the website so it wasn’t such a stark white it would be so much more visually appealing.
I stare at chat windows quite a bit and I don’t want to feel that I have eye strain from doing so!
Fortunately, according to a post on Twitter that they had recently it looks as if they have a GUI spot they were filling so perhaps the one downside is about to change? We can only hope because as that is the ONLY drawback on this amazing service it’s one to keep track of for anyone who talks online or on the go!
Interested in checking the site out? Be sure to stop over at imo.im today!
