Friday, December 09, 2005

the IM as my PIM.....

since I wrote about instant messengers, and bitched at the useless stuff they have added, I might as well write a bit about what I think they should add.

I should start with this...to me IM should not be just IM but my basic communication platform. My communications and my personal information manager. It should host everything only and it should go with me wherever I go and log in...regardless of what computer I sit at. That being said. I'd say my ideal IM would start with most of the features skype v1.x has offered plus:

1)grouping of contacts AND configurable online status on a per group base. I should be able to have a friends group, a family group a work group, an ex girlfriends group, etc...and be able to set my work group to Busy (I want them to think I work hard).....my friends group to Online (I always have time for friends)....my family group to Away (I don't have to explain that one..you all have families....and of course, my ex girlfriends group to Invisible

2) multiple email addresses on the same interface (like trillian as far as multiple accounts go, but no need to have one on each IM)

3)more robust telephony features...forwarding between IMs, more complex follow me features (if not online forward to my deskphone, else to my home phone, else to my cell phone, else to voicemail), integration with company IM server (to not have to ask for permission when calling intercompany), etc, etc

4) better contact management....and by contact management I mean a full fledged addressbook. One that looks a lot like yahoo's online addressbook, but integrated to the IM. Why yahoo as an example? cause its the only one I know that has synchronization!!!! I don't want to import and export...I want to sync!!!

4) my bookmarks.....I have online bookmarks on del.icio.us, quite useful actually, but why not in my IM...afterall, this IM of mine will be everywhere I go, what's the point of me having to log on to del.icio.us if the bookmarks could be right there? (by the way, what's the point of the online bookmarks on the MSN search bar for IE? do they expect me to install that bar on every computer I use? I don't think so....installing an IM...That's a different story)

5) my calendar and to do items...for the same reasons as on the former ones.

If you think about it, the instant messenger can and should be an online PDA.
The IM is contact centric, and so is everything in a standard PIM. Why can't the basic IM interface evolve into that?

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