Digsby: The little egg-shaped messenger that does it all
I’ve just downloaded a new messenger program called Digsby. After a few days of use, it has me very impressed.
Digsby is an internet messenger program comparable to MSN’s Live Messenger or AOL’s AIM. In fact, it’s not just comparable to these programs, but works as a replacement for them. Digsby allows you to sign into all the major messenger services (AOL, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, ICQ {for those of you who remember ICQ}, and Jabber). It can also be set up to give you e-mail notifications for your Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail, as well as any POP server based e-mail that you may specify. Finally, it allows you to sign into Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace and receive updates and notifications for those social network services.
These capabilities by themselves don’t necessarily set Digsby apart. A program called Trillian has been around for years that allowed you to have one contact list for all your messenger accounts. Another messenger called Pidgin later came on the scene with the basic same abilities, adding support for Google Talk and MySpace messenger. I don’t know if those programs ever let you check any POP server mail account, so Digsby has an edge there, but a couple of other functions that really set it apart.
For one, Digsby is the first free messenger through which you can access all your major messenger accounts that has web cam support. So for those of you out there that want to run a cam, but don’t want to have four different messengers running all the time, Digsby is the choice for you.
Second, and this is really cool, Digsby allows you to embed a widget on any webpage through which a visitor to that page can talk to you live. They don’t have to install a thing (well…they do have to have Adobe Shockwave running on their machine, but apparently 200 million users out there already have it installed). They just browse to the web page where the widget lives. They click on it and can start chatting with you live.
It opens up all sorts of new possibilities for web businesses working on a budget. Did you want to have a live assistance area on your website, where visitors can chat with you? Well, now you can just download and install Digsby, and then run through the simple process of building your widget and embedding the tiny chunk of code Digsby generates into your webage. If you want to add the Widget to Facebook, it’s even more simple. When you set up your Facebook service in Digsby’s preferences, it asks you if you want to add the widget to your profile. It then behaves like any other Facebook app.
Sound cool? You can try it out right now without any downloading. I’ve already installed the widget on my portfolio website at gurustump.com (check the right column under latest additions), and on my facebook profile (left column this time). All you have to do is click in the text-entry field and start typing. If I’m listed as online, it’s a good bet I’ll respond.
So there is a first introduction to Digsby. It is apparently getting a lot of buzz and users out there on the interwebs right now, even though it’s only been in public beta for a few days. It’s already very customizable, but look for it to get mroe features and updates as time goes on.
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 2:56 am and is filed under Reviews and Recommendations, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
