Seth Sternberg of Meebo joined me and Om on this week’s edition of Om and Niall PodSessions covering the latest trends and developments in instant messaging. Microsoft and Yahoo! launched new versions of their messaging software this week, including many features I will never use. What do end users want from their instant messaging software?
Seth doesn’t think the big portals have added a new feature that users have been clamoring for in years. Chinese company Tencent has captured about two-thirds of the Chinese market with its QQ client. Estonian company Skype has enjoyed tremendous success with its P2P and encrypted conversation technologies. Meanwhile large companies have relied on acquisitions to stay fresh, such as Yahoo! integrating Dialpad and Microsoft adding FolderShare to their latest releases.
Meebo has noticed a sharp decline in instant message traffic during World Cup games involving England or Brazil. The world pauses to watch the game before returning to their computers for instant analysis.
This week’s PodSession, Instant Messaging. The podcast is 24 minutes in length, a 11 MB download.