The Balkanization of Chatting

JThaddeus writes "Slashdot's own (or former) CmdrTaco has a posting on the Washington Post's website where he discusses how chat apps have overtaken SMS. Yeah, they are cheap. There's no telecom fee per message or for some number of messages per month. However 'The problem of course is that these systems are annoyingly incompatible with each other. My phone can buzz with chat notifications from 3 different apps at any moment. My desktop has even more scattered across browser tabs and standalone apps.' Ditto, nor do I want to hassle learning some app or trying to understand its who's-listening settings. I'll stick to email and to occasional SMS."

Comments

Not just chatting. Forum discussions suffer, too.

[mfarah]

Back in the day, there was *one* discussion forum: Usenet. It was everywhere, and all servers connected to it. Now, there are *thousands* of disconnected forums, dozens of "forum software packages", etcetera. Even systems that try to connect distinct forums (Disqus) aren't necessarily the most popular option.

Re:Didn't Trillian do this?

[Tog Klim]

pidgin does it everywhere for free, and it can do SMS via AOL.

Re:Come back

[i kan reed]

IRC is in fact still a robust system for talking to people by text. Data organized into relevant streams called channels, with mechanisms for self-policing built in. There's a lot of modernity to, say, skype, but fundamentally, IRC has all the basic mechanisms done well in an open way. But unlike these services, IRC is automatically balkanized, not only do your friends have to use the same technology, they have to use the same IRC networks.

Re:Usenet's death report has been greatly exaggera

[Zero__Kelvin]

There are plenty of free newsgroup servers. Google is your friend! ... or at least their search engine is anyway ;-)

Skype?

[technomom]

A whole article on this topic without mentioning maybe one of the more historically successful attempts at pulling together voice, chat, offline chat/mail - Skype?

I know it's not perfect but it is definitely the only messenging service that my family all work with - grandma/grandpa from their ancient Dell computers included.

Re:"Cheap?" Who's still paying for chat apps?

[wagnerrp]

Infinite bucks per GB? SMS messages don't use bandwidth or data. They get carried in what is otherwise wasted padding in heartbeat packets. That's why they have a limited character length.

Why I use SMS

[houghi]

The reason I use SMS and hope to use for a LONG time are the following:
1) No data plan needed. This means I am not tempted to go online all the time. So I just used a pre-payed card. Last top-up was 28/02 for 25 EUR. Still 15 EUR available
2) I can use it with the many people who do not have a smart phone. It just works.
3) Smart messaging. This means if I want to chit-chat, I SMS them where we can meet, we meet, have a few drinks and have an actual personal relationship.
4) Because it costs the other person to send something back, they don't send useless messages and most of the time just a message where we can meet.

And if smsing is not an option, you could, you know, use the device to, well telephone the other person and speak to them.