[JDEV] Thoughts on AOL

[David Waite]

The main reason you cannot do these things is that IM was developed by
companies who understood that it was 1) a differentiation to get users to
buy/use their existing services, 2) the value of the network goes up quite a
bit more than linearly with the number of users, and/or 3) the users on the
IM network itself are an asset.

AOL developed their AIM client because it differentiated them from other
service providers; you didn't have to join some chat room and wait around to
see if your friends came online, it was built right in, and you instantly
knew if they were available or not.

ICQ's business model was pretty much "give it away to anyone and everyone on
the internet, and then sell off the user base". AOL bought them when they
had nearly as many users as AIM, I would  imagine because they knew that
someone else would, and they did not want to have a service out there with a
competing feature.

Yahoo's client is just a way to tie in their portal, pretty much keep Yahoo
on your desktop every minute you are online. Microsoft realized this too -
and integrated the IM client into the OS distribution, and a ton of the
apps. They want to tie people into the windows platform and Microsoft
applications - if you switch from office, you lose the ability to co-author
documents, if you switch from windows you lose the ability to talk to your
Windows-running friends. Its also great advertising for MSN, which is
directly competing with AOL.

So every player now has a strong interest in keeping their clients on the
desktop. Also, unlike email, there is almost always an amount of resource
usage server-side for an online user -whether they are available or away,
chatting or doing something else entirely. Open the networks, and the
branding disappears; you are left doing nothing but providing the disk space
and electricity for people on other networks to talk.

How many places on the internet provide free web space, with no strings
attached and no advertisements? How many networks provide free email
accounts without an ad-stuffed web interface and/or spam-packed mail? Its
just not in their best interest; there is no money in it.

The only way which I personally see this being resolved would be a new
network forming and growing to be as large as the networks mentioned above.
This is what I want to happen, and I'm betting on it being Jabber :-)

-David Waite

----- Original Message -----
From: "Aaron McBride" <amcbride at verbots.com>
> Here's something that's been bugging me for a while.  Why can't IM be like
> email?
> Why can't I log into Yahoo and send a message to someone on AIM (without
> having to get an AIM account)?
> Why can't I setup a server at my office that checks which of my "buddies"
> are online, and let me know?
>
> Is it really about resources?  If so, why doesn't AOL block email from the
> outside world?
> Is it really about "protecting their users from spam"?  If so, why don't
> they do something about all of the spam on ICQ?
>
> Seriously... I'm baffled.  Maybe it all comes down to ad revenue.  If AOL,
> or MS, or Yahoo, or whoever own the standard, then they can ensure that
> they have their millions people looking at the ads that they sell.  Can we
> somehow create a situation where the protocol is standardized, but there
is
> still a way for the people interested in making money to provide a client
> that is better enough that people will use it with ads?  I'm thinking of
> the Eudora model with email.
>
> I'll shut-up now.  :)
>
> -Aaron
>
>
> >It's just that they have this crappy double standard about how people are
> >allowed to use the resources that they already offer up to the non-paying
> >public, and it seems that a lot of people here (myself included) are
> >wondering if we should respect *that* at all.
> >
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