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September 26, 2003

IM as a universal super info-manager

I've used Trillian for about a year now. Trillian Pro 1.0 added Plug-in features a while ago (I don't remember when, maybe it was a while ago), and I had the chance to play with them recently. And it's hard to not see where this could go.

Weather I can create a list of places to check weather, and Trillian automatically checks and I can see the latest weather just by moving over it.

I can also assign a location to each contact, and see what the weather is where they are at.

RSS FeedsTrillian will check all of my news feeds, pop up a window when a new message comes in, and show the summary with a mouse-over.

All of these plug-ins use the Trillian SDK (other similar IM clients such as GAIM have similar plug-in capabilities). So anyone could integrate any number of features into their IM "desktop," such as:

  • Dynamic location information using a GPS tracking service or with integration to your calendar--see in real-time where your mobile contacts are (and then chat with them via their mobile device)
  • Per-contact information--give rights to certain contacts to see some things about you, but not others (ie work contacts can see what meeting you're in, but not your friends who work at the competition); and vice-versa, the ability to determine which information I want to have about each contact
  • Context integration--when I chat with a customer (which I frequently do), it'd be nice to see some context about that customer (recent activity on their account); or, a contact's most recent blog entries (for conversation starters), or the weather where they are at (linked to the GPS locator), the last couple of email messages they sent me, my notes from the last few times they called me

    Of course, all of this leads to a lot of confusion in configuring, tracking, managing. But it'd still be cool

    Posted by pete at September 26, 2003 3:00 PM

    Comments

    I've been using Trillian for a little under a year, and it's one of the more useful programs I've purchased. For me, the most important features are:

    1. Using multiple IM services with only one client program. My family uses Yahoo IM, my work uses AIM, some friends use ICQ.

    2. One of the pluging will check multiple POP e-mail accounts and notify me of new messages.

    3. Being able to rename contacts so I can immediately know who they are instead of trying to figure out some of the obscure nicknames people sometimes give themselves.

    I've recently started using the RSS feed. I'll have to check out the weather one.

    Posted by: Eric James Stone at September 26, 2003 3:14 PM

    You might want to look into Jabber -

    http://www.jabber.org

    An XML-based IM architecture. Using a Jabber server as middleware between an ERP/CRM app, an RSS aggregator, or an email server is a snap since all it is is a glorified XML router.

    IIRC, Trillian Pro supports the Jabber (XMPP) protocol.

    Posted by: Chris at November 16, 2003 11:38 PM