The Business of Instant Messaging

willll writes "The Washington Post is running a story about how AOL plans to make money from Instant Messaging, one of the few successes in recent times for AOL. This article includes plans for corporate versions of AIM as well as discussion on some of the state on instant messaging."

Comments

Isnt it funny

[stratjakt]

that the most trivial application of the internet is the most profitable?

I mean sending text from peer to peer is pretty much the "hello world" of TCP/IP 101.

Sure the clients are a little more advanced, but the base concept is the same.

Re:Isnt it funny

[SpikeSpiff]

I'll disaggree. I think the value of IM comes from presence, and the magic is in managing buddy lists/availability.

IM is exciting because you can tell who to contact, and whether they are hearing.

Re:Isnt it funny

[FosterSJC]

Reminds me of the "Snood Effect". Also, here. (Search: Why Snood Gets No Respect)

In other words, the real killer apps are simple, addictive, and easily integrate into our current technological life. Tetris did this, (though, admittedly, it was not simple). It does not often happen with non-game applications.

But consider how different the IM you use now is from the one you used 8 years ago. There have been no changes to the essential nature of the app, just additional fru-fru alterations (rich text, away messages).

Thus, the real world-sweeping apps (not viruses) are compact, have one or few purposes, and often fill a hole that was there but unknown. Reminds me vaguely of the free long-distance cell phone revolution.

Re:Isnt it funny

[sql*kitten]

His point is, AOL didn't invent something like, mp3, or the merge sort, true type fonts or X11. They took a basic net connection, a little db management for buddy lists and a lot of servers to manage connections. No innovation here.

Like most techies, you've forgotten that not all innovation is technical. AOL used simple technology to create a service that appealed to millions of people. IRC is probably technically more sophisticated than AIM, but it's remained in a niche. Why is that?

Eh...

[Lordfly]

Seeing as the advertising revenue has gone down the can in recent months, how can they expect to make money?

Are people willing to pay for instant messaging?

Josh

Keep it simple

[tedDancin]

..While it has no plans to charge consumers for the existing service, AOL is considering selling add-ons such as matchmaking and games.

It seems like we could be seeing another piece of IM software drifting down the ICQ "bloatware" path. IMHO, as far as IM is concerned, especially when the aim is to expand into the corporate arena, the less features the better.

Re:Not feasible

[ekarjala]

These concerns are largely unfounded. Any organization that uses a groupware (e.g. Exchange/Outlook) package already has virtually instant messaging through their standard email conduit. Similar predictions were offered when high-speed access to the web came to employee's desktops. As with the web, novelty wears off quickly and everyone still needs to get their job done. In my experience, using IM in the office reduces the impulse for someone to walk to my cube and interrupt me face to face for something "quick" that becomes protracted and a more significant time sync as we converse. I see IM as a filter for "time-suckers".

Re:IM in business?

[Montag2k]

I used it in school - a lot. It is great for sending little snippets of code to friends as a sanity check. It's also a great way to stay in touch with friends and family on the other side of the country - you can always tell that someone is there and available to talk, and the conversation is instantaneous.

I think this would be a great tool for large (think multi-national) companies - it would allow them to bring all of their resources together and I believe it would allow teamwork on a higher level. Of course, this could probably be accomplished with e-mail as well, but IM - as the article said - has that "presence" and spontanaety that really works for good collaboration.

One last note - I haven't used Netmeeting or similar things yet, but I think it would be a good bet that the way for this type of collaboration software to really get its foot in the door or corporate America is through IM.

Now all that is left is to get a large acceptance of a nice, open protocol for IM - that is at least the one way it should be more like e-mail!

-Montag

Sounds good, but will it work?

[vga_init]

I have used many instant messaging clients over the years, and have only used AIM for very short periods of time. Every time I use it, I am very surprised at what a spartan piece of software it really is; any other messenger is easily more feature rich, so why don't people use them instead?

I believe that it is this simplicity that is part of what makes AIM so popular. The average AIM user, which never seemed to be very bright to me, could probably really appreciate the straightforward approach AIM takes to instant messaging. ICQ, which is almost the exact opposite, might repulse those same users, but since AOL owns both, then all is good! They are making use of the best of both worlds, it seems.

However, I currently use Yahoo as my primary messenger, and I have no intention of switching. As far as I'm concerned, Yahoo has found a happy medium, and provides, in my opinion, a much more effecient and useful system than the aforementioned clients.

What AOL should be afraid of is users migrating away from them if they get too pushy on the dollar, though since they claim not to be charging money for existing services, they ought to be secure in this area.

Though I'm not a personal supporter of AOL, I do think that they definitely do have a good opportunity for growth, and believe that any innovations they make might help to benefit everyone.

Re:Not feasible

[lpret]

I bet you said the same thing about e-mail. You must realize the difference between chasing fads and quickly adopting standards. I have set up Instant Messaging for a non-profit organization that does a lot of linguistic work, and I have been told that it has increased their productivity simply by letting them communicate easier and faster to colleagues. They are able to communicate with colleagues across the globe, asking quick questions that are vital to a project, and instead of waiting for an email reply (which may be at least a few hours) they get an instantaneous response.

Another technology that you probably fear is P2P sharing. This is another useful tool that I believe will start to make an impact on the business world. Locutus is what I have set up for them, and they are able to share documents/media that have had to have been requested while still making sure priveleges and security are a priority.

Perhaps you didn't like the computer -- imagine the gaming that would go on...

In the business world it's also kind of stupid

[JudgeFurious]

Considering that you have email, which you can connect to a pager in case they aren't there, the telephone (ah, old faithful) with voicemail which also can be paging you in case you miss an important call, your cell phone which many of us have permanently attached to our ears, and the list goes on and on and on....

Personally were I running a business this is about the last thing in the world I would bother spending any money on. That's just me though. Maybe there is some great benefit to this that I don't see. Someone make me a case for why I would need to spend some money on something like this. I'm curious here. Doubtlessly there's got to be something I'm missing.

No Spam!

[mark_space2001]

An interesting line from the article mentions that one reason adults and businesses are turning to IM is that email is increasingly filled with spam. This is a great counter point to Barry Shein's interview earlier on Slashdot today.

Mr. Shein wants to legalize spam and allow ISP to charge for it, a position that I completely oppose. Shein's proposal will result in more spam and flood our in-boxes with even more junk. Meanwhile, users are grabing any technology that is less spam friendly (and not acrane and difficult to use).

Re:Right

[fuzdout]

Yahoo already has this on Yahoo Instant Messenger where you can activate "voice chat" and with speakers and a microphone you can talk back and fourth with who ever has the same.
You can even set up web cams so the other person can see you :)

Feasible: Yes; Probrable: No.

[Rufford]

What I'm interested in seeing in the IM software is how they are going to set up the hierarchy. Will the sensitive business information exchanged between two engineers designing the next best product be traveling around the internet? Or will AOL release a client/server model that will allow a company to contain their information and optional contain messages from/to the outside world?

My two cents is that most businesses are more ready to take a Microsoft answer in the all-in-one suite or find a open solution if their staff has the time. Besides, AOL IMer is nowhere near business app status.

And to those that don't think IMs have a place in business or that people just trade smiley faces all day, you haven't seen how many meetings are avoided by simple online real-time at-your-own-computer-and-chair chat.

Why should AOL make money with it?

[g4dget]

IM may look like a service being offered by AOL, but it really isn't. IM could be provided in the same way that E-mail is: through our ISPs. That is, each ISP would run an IM server, just like they are running an SMTP server, they'd use an open protocol, and your IM id could be the same as your e-mail (or maybe not, if you don't like that). That's, effectively, how IM started out on UNIX and mainframe systems, long before AOL or any of the other players.

It's a historical accident that, instead, we have this kludgy, centralized, closed infrastructure that's owned by AOL and a few other players. If AOL goes away and takes their "free service" with them, all the better, as far as I'm concerned. But we'll probably have to listen to this kind of whining over and over again.