The user does not integrate the social networks via the client software, but via a web front-end.  ICQ currently connects to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Delicious and Flickr.  More networks will follow.  If you want, the ICQ client can tweet your online status automatically.

According to the manufacturer, ICQ 7 is much faster and more lightweight than the previous version.  In a first short test, we can confirm this.  However, ICQ still requires the Adobe Flash runtime to be installed and displays flickery advertisement banners.

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3. New IM networks for Windows Live

The Russian newspaper “Vedomosti” says that the investor group Digital Sky Technologies (DST) wants to buy ICQ for some 200 to 250 million US dollars.  Aol. had bought ICQ for 400 million US dollars in 1998 and gradually linked it to its own Messenger, AIM.

Currently, ICQ has around 8.4 million single users in Russia.  According to data published by the market watching company ComScore, it is thus the most-used instant messaging service in Russia.  First rumors about a possible selling of ICQ had come up already one month ago.

Back then, Aol. had ordered the investment bank Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co to find a buyer for ICQ.  Digital Sky Technologies mainly participates in Web companies.  In May 2009, they had already bought 200 million dollar shares of the social networking service Facebook.

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mynetx: Nice to see you! Windows Live and You—that includes some personal questions as well. You could start with describing yourself and your connection with Windows Live, in one sentence.

Jonathan Kay: I am Jonathan Kay and currently a Microsoft MVP for Windows Live Messenger (aka MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger), assisting in Microsoft Messenger related newsgroups since 2001. I also run my own Messenger blog.—Gah, two sentences!

mynetx: An MVP?

Jonathan Kay: [Microsoft] Most Valuable Professional. It’s a yearly award given to people who’ve been identified by Microsoft as making a significant contribution to their community.

mynetx: Ah. So they consider you making significant contributions to the Windows community?

Jonathan Kay: Well, Windows Live community. Prior to their being a “Windows Live” MVP category, it was all bunched in with Windows, but right now it’s separate.

mynetx: Helping other, inexperienced users to get their, for example, Messenger working is interesting work, isn’t it.

Jonathan Kay: It is, not to mention quite satisfying. You also gain a lot of knowledge and experience in other related areas by doing it.

mynetx: Since when are you in the Live business? Tell me a bit about your history.

Jonathan Kay: Well, when I got my first modem 1992-ish, text-based real-time communication attracted me pretty quickly. I spent many hours dialed up to local bulletin board systems just chatting to people in my own city. This fascination carried over to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) when I got Internet access a few years later and then gave way to what we would consider modern instant messaging with ICQ in 1996. In that time span, I met some really extraordinary people which led my interests to obtaining my first MVP award in 98 for Internet Explorer. As IM has evolved, so have I, which brought me to being given the MVP award as a top contributor in the Messenger community in 2001. This has carried on since, all the way to Windows Live Messenger and I’ve continued to meet some exceptionally brilliant people.

mynetx: Like?

Jonathan Kay: I won’t name names because it’s far too easy to forget one and the whole community is just filled with them. Yourself included naturally…

mynetx:

What is your favourite feature in Messenger?

Jonathan Kay: If you mean favourite feature of all time, that would be really difficult to answer since there’s a lot to choose from. Earlier this year, In the brief webcast that was done at the MVP Summit, I mentioned What’s New as my favourite new feature, which is still true, but I had forgotten that MPOP (Multiple Points of Presence) was also an option so I think I’ll go with that here. MPOP is a really well implemented feature and being able to seamlessly move from one client/device/location to another is just excellent. It will be even better once more software/devices support it.

mynetx: What devices are you using MPOP from?

Jonathan Kay: Myself personally, just my desktop, server or laptop. Conversations can just continue as you go off to do something else, or need to reboot one machine, it’s great. But there’s lots of other scenarios that would be very nice too that I know people are just waiting for (like Xbox for instance).

mynetx: And what do you like most in Windows Live at all?

Jonathan Kay: Obviously I need to say Messenger as it’s my “first love” as it were, but there are certainly lots of awesome products under the brand. I think what I like most about everything in general is just how everything works together. For example, if you’re logged into a Hotmail-enabled account in Messenger and the same account in Live Mail, when you receive an e-mail to that account, you’ll be notified in Messenger, Live Mail will immediately have the message ready and if you log into the Hotmail website, it will all be synchronized with the desktop application. Photo Gallery is able to make use of your existing contacts’ information and can publish photos to Live Photos or third party sites (Flickr, Facebook, etc.). There are similar functions across all the products and I’m looking forward to more of this in the future. I certainly don’t believe anyone else has offered this sort of integration story previously, especially not with third party sites and for no cost.

mynetx: True, Windows Live offers unique features—for free. However, I think there are still many good ideas for new features to be implemented into Messenger. What is one thing you’d love most to be added to Messenger?

Jonathan Kay: Oh, most definitely. I have yet to meet anyone who didn’t have their own personal Messenger feature wish list.

Personally, I’d like to see some resources allotted to revisiting and enhancing some of older well used features in Messenger. There is a lot of functionality that has remained relatively unchanged since first introduced that is really in need of updating. A lot of these—custom emoticons, message history, and other core features originally showed up in MSN Messenger 6 (circa 2003) and are really due for some upgrades. Also, because there’s no way I can limit myself to one here, I’d also like to see some options to explicitly control parts of Messenger’s interface. For instance, I would love to be able to decide who and what sign in events specifically generate a toast on my screen.

Of course, the Messenger community provides some great options for overcoming both of these today.

Oh also, I’d like to see group and multi-person functionality continue to evolve more, such as multi-person voice conversations. Okay I’ll stop now!

mynetx: Lol, seems like there is much to do. Do you think any of these will be added in Windows Live Wave 4? If so, which are most likely, in your opinion?

Jonathan Kay: Really hard to say as they’re certainly tight lipped. However I would love to be pleasantly surprised.

mynetx: On to your personal habits… Running Messenger 24/7? Maybe you’ve got kind of a daily routine with Windows Live.

Jonathan Kay: For the most part I leave Messenger running all the time. I have no specific routine, but I certainly make use of a variety of the Live services every day (Messenger, Mail, Spaces, and so on).

mynetx: When you’re using Messenger intensively, I’m sure you’ve got a breaking tip for an “aha” effect. Give me a tip you consider precious

Jonathan Kay: Let’s see, there’s probably better ones, but one unobvious thing is you can drag (the icon of) completed files in the conversation window elsewhere to your desktop, to other conversation windows to resend, or to another application, such as a music player’s playlist to queue up a just transferred song.

mynetx: Hey, great tip! Didn’t know that myself either.

And finally, are you currently working on any Live-related project?

Jonathan Kay: I have a few ideas rattling around in my brain, but I’m not working on anything specifically that’s Live-related presently.

mynetx: Fine! Your last small project you made with PatchWise, was a good idea as well. Did you start right away on the tool for preventing automatic PhotoShare in Messenger, when you read about the patch?

Jonathan Kay: Well I checked to see if someone else had done made anything yet, and they hadn’t, so I thought I would make it easy for everyone.

mynetx: And you did! What download counter do you currently have?

Jonathan Kay: I just let the data accumulate in web logs and use a PowerShell script to extract and do the sum calculations. I haven’t felt the need to do much more than that, as the real reason for my redirect links is just so I can easily move it to another hosting location if I needed to.

mynetx: True… Have anything else to tell my readers?

Jonathan Kay: Yes, if they’ve made it this far, then I appreciate their time going through all this and hopefully it was at least somewhat interesting. And thank you for the opportunity to be on here.

mynetx: No problem—thank you for taking the time to talk with me about Windows Live and You!

Jonathan Kay: You’re very welcome

Related posts:

1. Windows Live and You: “Windows Live services help me keep in touch” (Lance Manasse)
2. Windows Live and You: “Send myself through Messenger” (Frank Mänz, Microsoft Germany)
3. Windows Live and You: “Messenger is like the phone: I just use it” (Kip Kniskern)

Adding support for additional instant messaging networks has always been on a high place on the wish list for Windows Live Messenger. People were excited when they have to know that Microsoft and Yahoo would cooperate to allow using the networks in both company’s clients, back in 2005. People were even more excited when they learnt that the Windows Live team had not lied and integration really came true in 2006.

However, since then, not much has happened in relation to cooperation between big chat networks. Even the situation between Microsoft and Yahoo has become quite strange since last year’s happenings. For now, the latest report published on this blog as well as “Messenger Stuff” ( http://www.msgstuff.com/ ), about “New IM networks for Windows Live”, is a made-up story, as far as considering the planned cooperation of Windows Live with ICQ, AIM, Skype, Google Talk and Facebook Chat.

Microsoft landed a big coup with Windows Live Wave 3, adding social networking features and reinventing the world of Live Spaces as well as introducing new functionality like Windows Live Profile and Web Activities showing up in omnipresent “What’s New” feeds.

Sadly, implementing Facebook as a new Web Activity, something that had always been in the mind of the Windows Live Managers, took longer than expected, which is the reason why it is still not released to the public yet. From the latest news that I read, the release date for Facebook “What’s New” integration is already set internally, only not announced yet.

Adding support for all major instant messaging networks would make Windows Live Messenger the unquestionable no. 1, and we should really hope that Microsoft would finally realize exactly this. The tremendous amount of comments and enthusiasm about this news story, here in this blog as well as at the corresponding news posts at Messenger Stuff and at LiveSide, shows what Messenger users throughout the world think about such a universal Instant Messaging integration.

Dear Windows Live Team, do you see how much your users want it?

Related posts:

1. New IM networks for Windows Live
2. Windows Live and You: “Windows Live services help me keep in touch” (Lance Manasse)
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“We are currently aiming to achieve full integrative support for widely popular instant messaging networks. Therefore, we have started discussions with the back-end and front-end Developer Teams of AOL LLC, Skype Ltd and Google Inc. Furthermore, we have intensified our cooperation with Facebook Inc. for a similar purpose,” says Dharmesh Mehta, Windows Live Messenger Product Manager.

The integration of the chat networks powered by AOL, namely ICQ and AIM, has always been a big wish for Messenger users all around the world, and seems to be the continuing of what the Messenger team started when adding support for Yahoo, back in 2006. Skype integration offers interesting possibilities, such as video and voice calls right from Windows Live Call.

With Facebook, another social networking site enters the boat, and I think Microsoft is just happy about being able to continue their efforts to introduce social networking to Messenger; we have already seen the beginning of this in Wave 3 (Windows Live Profile, What’s New Feeds etc). Finally, connecting with Google opens another wide audience of Messenger users.

The current master plan for adding support for ICQ, AIM, Skype, Facebook and GTalk is Q4-2009, so it will probably make its way into Windows Live Wave 4, where ideas are currently gathered for and sorted.

“I can’t promise too much yet, but I think it’s just what Windows Live is missing currently,” states Dharmesh. “You’ll soon be able to add Facebook […] on Windows Live. This means that […], if you’re a Facebook user, you can choose to allow info and photos that you post on Facebook to show up in ‘What’s new’ for anyone in your network on Windows Live,” says Brian Hall, General Manager for Windows Live.

Adding support for all major instant messaging networks would make Windows Live Messenger the unquestionable no. 1, and it seems that Microsoft is finally realizing exactly this – if things are implemented the way they are announced.

Looking forward to hear your opinion on this!

• LiveSide.net: New IM networks for Windows Live?
• Messenger Stuff: New IM networks for Windows Live
• LiveSino.net: WL Messenger ?? AIM, ICQ, Skype, GTalk, Facebook ???
• Mess.be: Windows Live Messenger hot topic on April Fools Day 2009
• ActiveWin.com: New IM networks for Windows Live?
• Ditii.com: IM networks (ICQ, Skype, AIM, Facebook Chat and Google Talk) added to Windows Live
• WinAjuda: Novas redes a caminho do Windows Live Messenger
• TechBlips: New IM networks for Windows Live
• Windows Vista Magazine: New IM networks for Windows Live Messenger?
• SysAdmin.it: New IM networks for Windows Live?
• Vistaheads.com: New IM networks for Windows Live Messenger?
• Charged.co.za: New IM networks for Windows Live?
• Recursosvoip.com: New IM networks for Windows Live

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3. Group Chat Comparison: Groups.im vs. Messenger 2009

Recently Microsoft came out with the new Windows Live Groups, and I have found a similar service to compare with it from http://groups.im/. Both of them are used by people all around the world and both came out to the market at 2008, Groups.im is a third party platform for group chat. There are differences and some similarities in both of them.Windows Live Groups support up to 48 different languages, Groups.im has only 8 different language packs. Groups.im have a great advantage, which is being able to work with various instant messengers, but the Windows Live Groups only run with Windows Live Messenger. So the advantage of Groups.im is that it will support all mainstream instant messengers on the market, so far it allows users to sign up with their Windows Live ID or Yahoo account for free and soon most of other instant messengers like Google Talk, AIM, ICQ, etc. will also be able to sign in with their account and use the service for free.

Groups.im allows a revolutionary new chat experience. It will have the ability to let people chat through the platform and actually have a boundary-less communication between different instant messengers.

Related posts:

1. Windows Live and You: “Windows Live services help me keep in touch” (Lance Manasse)
2. New IM networks on Windows Live: Will it stay just a wish?
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