Doing It All Online - Part 3

Posted: 12.10.2005
By: Derek Coleman

Meebo - The Ultimate Chat Client...
I'm use to chatting with several friends at once during my leisure time on the PC, but the idea of downloading chat software on my test computer is out of the question. My poor processor wouldn't be able to handle one chat client much less four different clients running at the same time. Then I found Meebo, which allowed me to everything I could ever want to do when chatting it up with friends and family, and all in my browser. Meebo lets you securely sign in to AIM or ICQ, Jabber or Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger clients and gives you a sidebar that shows who's online on each client. Did I mention you can sign on to multiple clients at once and all your buddies are in the one sidebar? Yep, with Meebo you can chat with all your friends at the same time no matter what chat client they use as long as you know your logon for each client. The best parts about Meebo is you don't have to download a thing and it runs right in your web browser! This makes it great using Firefox as you can surf at the same time without shuffling around with extra programs or trying to find out which window goes with which person. And Meebo has a virtual desktop where you can move and adjust the size of chat windows the way you want, just like a real desktop!

Bringing Friends Together...
One of the best things I found using Meebo was that people I chat with never can tell if I'm using Meebo or not. That is unless I tell them. One time I decided to tell a buddy of mine about Meebo and they said that they were using it too! I had forgotten how fast word spreads when using chat. And to think only three young Stanford college students put it all together. Amazing! I have just begun to use it and shall continue to use it in the future. I have even convinced some family and friends to use it. Before they were nervous about installing the (still) buggy clients on their computers, and some of them were using computers at the library to do work, so that wasn't an option. When I introduced them to Meebo and showed them how it works however, they were amazed and excited about the idea of chatting without having to download anything. In my experience, chatting through Meebo is more secure than using the software versions of the chat clients. I still have issues with Yahoo! Messenger on my other PC giving me error messages, and I think I even get spyware by using it, because every time I finish using it the computer gets real slow and I have to run anti-spyware software to remove junk from my computer. Using Meebo I have had no problems at all and neither have my friends and family that use it. Because of that, I think we all have a much better chatting experience together.

The Future Of Comunication...
Although Meebo is an awesome solution to an old problem, I don't know if I see much use for it in the distant future. With technologies such as VoIP, Wi-Fi, and WiMAX beginning to mature into a viable communication solution all I can see Meebo being in the future is a backup system for communication along side email. Don't get me wrong, chat will be around for quite some time after voice technologies become mainstream, and I enjoy using it still. However, chat by itself cannot survive in the world of Information Technology as it stands. With voice features in Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, and MSN Messenger, Meebo needs to eventually support those features as well. It will be quite interesting what other features can and will be integrated into Meebo in the future as it is currently in the alpha testing stage. I will definitely keep my eye on this wonderfully useful web application especially as I continue to use it to chat with family and friends.