I thought this was pretty cool. But I was expecting Microsoft to be the first to introduce this feature. Immedi.at gives you a bookmarklet which you click on when the website you want has a auto-discoverable RSS feed (or click on the bookmarklet when you are on the actual feed url). But I find it inconvenient that Immedi.at doesn’t save my IM settings so I have to re-enter them every time I want to bookmark a new feed for IM alerts.
immedi.at helps you to keep track of online information as it changes. It sends you an instant message whenever any RSS or Atom feed you want to monitor changes. immedi.at works with all major IM carriers including MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, and AIM/ICQ.
http://immedi.at/
This is brilliant. This programme makes a robot for Skype that looks like a girl — with automated responses and even an attractive photo. The software author also put up logs of a previous conversation that the robot had with an unsuspecting victim who propositioned the “user”.
A profile is put up with a girl’s name and picture, and put in “Skype me” mode. Within minutes some seedy guy will invariably try calling/chatting, and there’s a little program I made running the whole time which will partner up people 2 at a time, and send messages from the first person to the second, & vice versa. This way both people think they’re talking to a girl.
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Over at drunkenblog.com, there is a post that posits the days of Trillian and other multi-IM clients will be over soon. There’s a rumour that Google is planning a multi-IM client so Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo have ganged up to introduce new non-backward compatible IM clients for each of their services that shuts out all others. This will probably appear for Windows only and will allow Mac multi-IM clients to still function.
I’ve been playing with the new Gizmoproject.com. It’s a Skype-type VOIP software available for both Mac and Windows that pretty much has the same features.
The main difference between the Gizmo Project and Skype is that it is built on open SIP standards. That means that if the local VOIP network in your city was built on SIP too, you’d be able to use Gizmo Project on it (well at least in theory). In addition, VOIP users will benefit from the ability of VOIP competitors to easily enter the market — lower prices, better features. Gizmo also benefits from more competitors since it will be easier for them to find partners who can give it the lowest prices so it can compete with Skype. That’s not the same as open source software, which Gizmo Project is not. So don’t expect third party GPL plugins any time soon.
What I’d like to do now is to find other people with both GizmoProject and Skype installed so I can hold conversations and compare the clarity between the two.
Meetro.com is a tiny geo-location social networking software, kind of like Placesite.com, except Placesite was restricted to users of a local wifi network. Meetro is more expansive and rides on AIM and ICQ networks. Basically it tells you who is nearby and gives you their profiles and the opportunity to contact them for real-life socialising. But I think the power might not be from socialising. It might be from recommendations that Meetro users make of local facilities like restaurants and hairdressers and schools. Meetro is currently only for Windows users.