Skype, AIM or Something Else?

aim_brand6.gif jabber_logo.png skype_logo.png yahoo-messenger-logo.gif

It’s a slow holiday so I’ll throw out a few echo chamber questions that we can think about in terms of how we interact with each other online in the business sense.

First let’s think about the all important instant messaging/VOIP/communications clients out there…

Do you and the majority of your contacts prefer Skype, AIM, Yahoo Chat, MSN Chat, Jabber or another platform for instant communication and VOIP? Have services such as GAIM or Meebo solved any headaches for you?

[Side note: Starting today (Jan 1), I’ll no longer be available on Skype. You can reach me through Ekiga instead. And I’ll be slowly phasing out my AIM and Y! accounts (sbharrelson22) in favor of my Jabber account (samharrelson).]

3 thoughts on “Skype, AIM or Something Else?”

  1. I primarily use AIM and Yahoo through Adium (GAIM for OS X, a very nice app). I have MSN, GMail, Jabber, etc. accounts, but those never get used.

    My business partner and I communicate all day long via IM, and occasionally do a video chat using iChat. We get together typically once a week in person.

    Why phase out AIM and Y!? Is this part of your open sourcing your life?

  2. Scott- Yes, this is yet another step in my resolution to go completely open source in my life. It’s getting difficult when it comes to clothing, watches, transportation, etc, but I’m slowly on the way. Free Beer is definitely a big help.

    Hopefully by the end of the year I’ll be closer to my goal!

    By the way, there are some great non-proprietary VOIP clients out there that I highly recommend… Ekigo, Wengo, Twinkle, etc. Check out Asterik.org for large scale application usage of open source VOIP.

    I honestly think it will be open source VOIP adoption by large corporations which drives the coming shift from proprietary operating systems such as Windows and OSX.

  3. In the UK MSN is by far the most popular instant messaging software. I’ve got Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AIM and Skype accounts but as much as I don’t really like MSN I can’t get away from it.

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