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AIM And ICQ to be Integrated
sam writes "According to this InfoWorld article
the next version of America Online's Instant Messenger will allow users to communicate with ICQ users in a move that will bridge the gap between the company's two popular chat services.
Maybe AOL finally woke up and realized people were using IM clients that have both in them." I still use only IRC for messaging, but this is gonna make things easier for a lot of users.
I thought this already worked... You can load up the AIM client and add the Number (not nickname) of an ICQ user as buddy.
Does it mean that I can use iChat to chat
with ICQ firends? That would be cool!
Considering they use the exact same protocol, I'm not sure what the holdup was. ICQ2000 onward was really just AIM protocol anyhow. I guess they need to make integration look hard so they have an excuse to not allow MSN and Yahoo! interoperability.
Trillian.cc
It lets you connect to and message users on both ICQ and AIM, as well as MSN and Yahoo. And you can connect to IRC with it, although I prefer to use mIRC for that.
Username taken, please choose another one.
Hopefully Apple will add this functionality to iChat as well. I don't personally use ICQ, but there are plenty of folks who do.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
For all practical purposes, aren't they integrated on the client side?
"To each protocol according to its need; from each protocol according to its hackishness."
-a Red
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
AOL files a lawsuit against itself as it tries to integrate ICQ into their Instant Messenger System.
There is no
Me: Hey web server, what's your load?
Linux-2 Web Server: Heavy dude! Slashdot just linked to a page and I am r0X0red to max! Talk2UL8r
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
This also makes the combined messaging client absolutely unstoppable HUGE! I only wonder if they're planning to merge features (for example, ICQ allows you to send a message to someone even if they're not on; AOL doesn't). Now if they'd only interoperate with everyone else, instant messaging could become big enough to replace email.
Bloated AIM client + Bloated ICQ client = 20 MB executable. Greeeat.
evil adrian
I personally find most "chat" boring and don't see the point of it. People obviously use it though, so I guess I just missed the point I use it because the phone sucks, and even if I did enjoy using the phone, most of the people I talk to on aim are boring as hell on the phone. People just naturally seem better able to communicate when you can't hear their pauses, sighs, and hums.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Does this mean the open source ICQ clients are gonna get killed...?
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Does this mean they'll be adding ICQ functionality to AIM, such as being able to message/recieve messages while i'm not online or the person i'm sending to isn't online?
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
the AIM client will finally include a feature that lets you change how someone appears in your buddy list (e.g., "Jesse Ruderman" instead of "JesseRud")? I can't imagine AIM forcing users to deal with a buddy list full of 9-digit ICQ numbers. Other than automatic logging, this is the feature I'm hoping for the most in the official AIM client.
The shareholder is always right.
Well, I would just like to point out that Talk has been around effectively forever, with a more standardized version appearing with 4.2 BSD (although it broke compatibility with Sun's implementation at the time)
So, NO, talk was not an icq knock-off.
-OctaneZ
I use it because the phone sucks
I use it because
1) I cant phone people in the middle of a workshop at uni
2) Mobile phone calls cost arround a dollar a minute to australia. ICQ costs arround a cent a millenium. Dont use MSN or AIM - I've got a semi-low number on ICQ.
Have a look at Gaim.
I don't use it myself, but it's sourceforge's most active so I'm sure someone finds it valuable.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
don't forget that GAIM has an alpha version that does run on windows.
And it has plugins for all the following protocols:
* TOC
* Oscar
* Yahoo!
* ICQ
* MSN
* IRC
* Jabber
* Napster
* Zephyr
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Einstein
It's called Trillian. Though it's not open source (sorry purists)
Well, Gaim is. It supports AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Napster, Zephyr, and Gadu-Gadu.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Does this mean ICQ might finally throw out those stupid numbers?
I mean - no one goes to slashdot by typing http://64.28.67.150...
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
This HAS to be meant to be either a hge troll or a humorous comment, but since it hasn't been modded as such, here are the inaccuracies in this comment:
1- UNIX talk predates ICQ by at least 10 years, and it appears as "vastly inferior" because it's meant for a completely different purpose. A car appears "vastly inferior" to an airplane because it can't fly, but that's not what it was meant to do.
2- Trillian's author (and those of all the "compatible" IM utilities) aren't "stealing intellectual property"; they're doing reverse engineering of the protocols, then implementing those protocols in their own applications. It's actually so legal, it's even explicitly permitted by law. It's actually a good idea since that way I can use all those IM networks without having to use Windows, or Yahoo's, AOL's and Microsoft's client software. Um, maybe they would prefer I didn't use their IM networks?
Trading files is not "illegal" per se. That's all I'm going to say about this one.
This is AOL realizing "hey, we bought ICQ a while ago, let's start actually doing something with it", because they were getting stomped in the IM arena by competitors.
The way I see it, snail mail was a very asynchronous means of communication, while telephone was synchronous. In the former, you wait a considerable time for a reply, while in the latter, the reply was instantaneous. E-mail changed things a bit. Communication was still asynchronous, but it was also instantaneous. The potential for two people to both be logged in and having a timely exchange regardless of location was nice, yet if one party was unavailable, the message wouldn't be lost to the ether... they'd just get it next time they logged in. No per message costs were another factor, what with postage and long distance rates always a consideration.
IM straddles the line a bit more. You know when someone is online, but they may be otherwise occupied. It allows an informality... a way to exchange one-liners or anything else, without the recipient feeling they NEED to respond immediately. It's good as a background task so long as neither party is overly anxious for a reply. Less effort, and more potential for a timely response than email.
Just my two cents...
This sig intentionally left justified.
AIM and ICQ are both owned by AOL. ICQ is the original IM.
Accurate.
And at one point was the most poular.
I think this is accurate, but i'm not sure.
There have occasionally been UNIX knockoffs, like the vastly inferior command line "talk" implementation, however it was incapable of letting you know whne new users had signed on, also, it could not do file transfers.
Um, wrong. If the parent post is a troll, this is probably the little "subtle absurdity" flag. The UNIX Talk protocol is very, very old and serves a different purpose than that of AIM. I'm not sure when it dates from, but i see here an RFC for a message-sending protocol to allow "write" messages to be sent across TCP/IP, that dates all the way back to 1983. For comparison, AOL was founded in 1985. Anyway, Talk has not traditionally been used quite the same way as AIM, for that purpose look at IRC. (Yes, it's slightly different.)
Programs like Trillian, that do what the author of this article suggests have been having a difficult time lately because they steal Yahoo, AOL, and Microsofts intellectual property, in an attempt to make money. It's like companies like Kazaa and Gnucleus that make money off of other people trading files. It's illegal. And not a good idea.
This is absolute nonsense. Trillian, GAIM, etc have been having no problems, as they are using AOL's servers with permission using the specifically-made-for-third-parties TOC protocol. The big sound fury about "stealing" was when MSN tried to use the OSCAR protocol used by AOL's AIM client instead of TOC, and AOL said "you can't do that, these are our servers and you have to agree to use TOC". This was a very reasonable issue, but the issue was over "unauthorized access and use of a computer system", not over "stealing intellectual property" (?? Where does intellectual property come into this? TOC is publicly documented, and when third-party AIM clients do some wierd runaround and try to slip in some OSCAR features, they do so using reverse-engineering, which is completely legal to the point of not even being an intellectual property issue). Anyway, Jabber has problems from time to time because AOL really, really seems to hate them, and so last i checked they are leaving TOC out of the main codebase for fear that jabber puts TOC support in, AOL will shut down TOC just to keep jabber out or something.
This is just AOL doing what is best. They saw a duplication of effort in their own company and decided to stop it.
Accurate.
I would bet that a lot more people would use Linux if Open Source programmers would wake up and realize that they also are (most of the time) duplicating effort. Gnome and KDE are but one example. Just search freshmeat for an mp3 database organizer one day, and you'll see what I mean.
This is opinion. However, it is by no means an invalid one.
Actually both systems already use the AIM OSCAR protocol. They are already controled by the same servers even (you can log into AIM using the server login.icq.com or login.aim.com it makes no difference). The only thing is that atm AIM puts a privacy policy file on all AIM accounts that blocks screen names with numbers in it and you are unable to remove it. So ICQ people can't message your AIM account because it is as though the person is blocked, nor can they see you online, nor can you see them online or message them.
All they need to do to make this happen is remove that entry in everyone's privacy file. I always thought it was stupid having them seperated anyways.
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Gnucleus (a gnutella client) doesn't make any money, period. The author ("Swabby") created the freeware because he wanted to see a good file trading client available. It is certainly not illegal to make freeware that others will use to illegally trade files with.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
The Crossover Plugin will download and install Trillian for you. I don't use it in Linux, personally, but the Crossover stuff seems to work pretty solidly so I'd be surprised if it didn't run acceptably.
Game... blouses.
Fire for OS X integrates AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, and Jabber. Plus it is GPL source, and uses GPL libraries.
AOL/Time Warner is bringing together the two massive IM communities to disuade them from straying onto other integrated IM solutions, like Trillian (which has probably been mentioned about 50 times in this discussion by now). This maximizes their advertisement potential. Users will predictably be weined off of ICQ towards AIM, which will eliminate the need to develop two seperate IM clients that effectively accomplish the same goal.
He says that the servers for ICQ and AIM are _identical_. The only thing that separates the two networks is _one flag_ (in the message header, I think), that AOL can switch at will. The reason AOL kept AIM and ICQ separate is purely political: they didn't want the competition to connect to AIM. (IIRC, this has something to do with fulfilling the AOL/TW merger requirements). Microsoft has been quite vocal on this issue, even going so far as to propose "open standards" for instant messaging. Funny how they cry foul when they have to fight an uphill battle for a change.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I still use only IRC for messaging, but this is gonna make things easier for a lot of users.
IRC??? Whats that? I'm still using ytalk
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
Why not match userID's, like Ebay did when it brought in Half.com? My UID for ICQ and AIM Screename could be linked together.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I don't think Cerulean Studios would sell out. The people over there can be so anti-AOL at times that they can give Slashdot a run for its money.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
I doubt that this will do anything to the interrupts within your computer :)
AOL has waited to long to make this jump. A lot of users have switched to using other clients rather then the AOL client. Millions of people use the AOL client and many of them download other software attempting to alter the client such as AIM+ which allows you to eliminate the ads as well as ad logging. However, if AOL released a client that allowed plugins as well as skins, many people would of not switched to other clients. They could of even kept their ads and (tried) to make it so they couldn't be removed. However, some programmers would create a skin or a plugin rather then creating a new client. And it would be easier for novice users to download a skin and not to learn how to use a new client. I believe that is why winamp has been so popular over the years. Yes, it doesn't have ads, but without plugins or skins I would say it would of been a minority in the market share long ago. One of the main reasons I have switched to GAIM is the plugin support.
The whole reason I scraped ICQ from my box was because I got too much spam through it. I wonder if using ICQ names through the AIM server will prevent spam? After all, I've never been spammed over AIM, that I remember... Then again, maybe I should have just looked more closely at ICQ's privacy settings.
Proteus.
Download here.
Check for updates here.
AFAIK Miranda does ICQ, AIM, MSN. I don't really care, though, I only need a slim ICQ client. Most clients I tried were either too slim - they couldn't do things like file transfers - or too ICQish fat - Trillian takes just as long to load as ICQ did. Also, no IM I tried was able to recover my ICQ history along with the contact list.[1]
Well, Miranda could do that, and it also starts in, oh, a split second as opposed to a split minute, which is quite comfortable. FWIW, Miranda is also free as in speech, not as in beer.
The fact that other clients support more protocols certainly doesn't necessarily mean they're better. As discussed above, many people seem to think Gaim, while supporting even more protocols than Trillian, isn't exactly the most comfortable IM around. Well, I'm as comfortable with Miranda as I've never been with any IM before.
[1] I'm pretty sure other alternative IMs can do that by now, too - but none did when I tried them. My IM history is quite important to me.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Isn't this just going to increase the reach of ICQ and AIM Spammers?
I mean doing this is juts going to increase the rate of which users of AIM or ICQ are going to be spammed, seeing as how we are now going to see AIM Spam reaching ICQ and vice versa.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Needless to say, this has been a move AOL has been planning for ages.
If you hack open an old version of AOL Instant Messenger for Macintosh with ResEdit, you'll find all the necessary UI to implement ICQ integration. They have the icons, dialogs, errors, etc.
It seems that AOL was just waiting for the right moment to flip the switch.
Yes, everyone has their own favorite for their favorite . One platform without most of the usual is Mac OS X, but we're blessed with the Cocoa quality and GPL love of Fire.
have the best feature of ICQ, the ability to leave messages to people who are offline?
oh please let this be!!!!!1
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Jabber servers all communicate with each other, like email. There isn't any network segregation
If I am justin@andbit.net (which, I am), and you are wowtip@jabber.org, then my message to you would go from client->andbit.net->jabber.org->client.