The world of web-based communication just keeps getting better. On Monday night Meebo launched Meebo Platform, a service allowing third party application development for the browser-based IM site. According to TechCrunch:

Like Facebook Platform and the recently announced MySpace Platform it consists of a set of APIs to give developers access certain user features and information. Developers will be able to include Flash applets and Javascript snippets within the applications.

Unlike MySpace and Facebook, however, the platform is not open to all who choose to come. The company is announcing four partners this evening and opening up a sandbox area for developers to build potential applications. Those that Meebo thinks will make the user experience richer, will be permitted to launch.

The four initial partners are Pudding Media (voice chat), Tokbox (video/audio calls), Ustream (live broadcasting) and Talkshoe (group voice calls).

Assuming these and future applications become part of Meebo's widget service, MeeboMe, this could benefit libraries offering virtual reference service by enabling voice and video chat with patrons directly from the library website.

IM remains the hot topic here at Library Laws. In recent weeks we've talked about Meebo, Plugoo, Pidgin, Adium and iChat AV. Well, there's a new player entering the field of IM clients: Mozilla. The folks responsible for the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird mail client have introduced Instantbird, an open-source, cross-platform, multi-protocol instant messaging client. Built on libpurple (the basis for both Pidgin and Adium), Instantbird is only on its first beta release (version 0.1) but already provides support for the AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, QQ, XMPP (aka Jabber) and Yahoo! networks. In addition, like other Mozilla applications, we can eventually expect a lot of user-created add-ons that will substantially increase the software's functionality.

This certainly makes my life more interesting, as I'm currently developing IM training and best practices for our reference librarians in using a multi-protocol client to monitor a virtual reference service. Originally, the plan was to recommend Pidgin for everyone, but in recent weeks a lot has happened to make this decision less certain. In addition to testing Instantbird on my own computers, I'm also analyzing the impact of Meebo's new Firefox sidebar add-on and the approaching release of Trillian Astra (including a Mac version). What should we be using? Trillian? Pidgin? Meebo? Hard to say, but at least the list of viable options is growing.

One week before the release of Apple's new operating system Leopard the company released a video showing the new operating system's latest features. There are all sorts of things that will make significant changes in home computing like the Time Machine backup archive system and increased ease in sharing documents across a network. However there is one technology that certainly has the potential to be very disruptive technology. The new iChat AV stands to make possible fundamental changes in the way we access and share information. The ability to share a document with a patron or user in real-time across the network brings to a whole new level the possibilities of how access to information can be made easier in all corners of the globe. Obviously the first hurdle to overcome is the lack of a cross-platform client but one wonders with the advent of Safari for Windows if there isn't an iChat client for Windows lurking in the wings. If there isn't there will be a rush for other IM/video chat clients to match iChat quickly. There was, of course, a time where iChat and AIM played nicely in the video chat realm. A time so long ago it is almost forgotten but a precedent none the less. To get a full flavor of what is on tap get the video and look about 20 minutes into it for the really cool iChat AV things to come.

Yeah, I've been pretty obsessed IM widgit/client compatibility for the last week...

I posted yesterday about monitoring your MeeboMe widgits in an IM client, and after playing with this functionality in both Adium and Pidgin, I now understand just how powerful that MeeboMe plugin for Pidgin is.

When connected to MeeboMe via XMPP/Jabber in Adium, I receive an authorization request every single time someone navigates to the web page containing a widgit. Until I authorize a visitor, she sees my status displayed as "offline" and can't IM me. Apart from being an incredible nuisance, particularly on high traffic pages, often times in Adium many of those authorization requests are buried beneath other windows, and I never know that they are there. Thus, my visitors see me as offline. Fortunately, in Adium I can change the event settings so that I hear a sound, get a Growl notification, see a bouncing dock icon, etc., but I still have to manually authorize each and every visitor.

The Pidgin plugin? It automatically authorizes every single visitor, effectively eliminating the request windows and the need for manual authorization. (Fortunately, it appears that a Summer of Code project will address this issue in the next version of Adium.)

Another hassle in Adium is that once I authorize a visitor, she is added to my buddy list (even if I uncheck the box to add them as a contact). That's fine as long as she's still viewing the page with the widgit, but unlike the Meebo web client, that visitor remains in my buddy list long after she's actually left the page. To get rid of her, I have to manually remove her from the list. Again, for a widgit on a high traffic page, that's a lot of manual buddy removals.

Worse still, I have a site with an IM widgit on every single page for certain types of users. This means that every time a single visitor navigates to a new page I am hit with new authorizations and new buddies in my list. That makes for a lot of manual maintenance.

The Pidgin plugin? It automatically removes each visitor from my buddy list as soon as she leaves the page containing the widgit. (There's no indication if this will be addressed in new versions of Adium.)

For Windows users, Pidgin handles MeeboMe monitoring beautifully and seamlessly. For Mac users, however, there doesn't appear to be a good solution yet, at least not until the next version of Adium. (A forum thread on the Meebo website confirms that authorization requests also have to be handled manually in the other two major Mac IM clients, iChat and Proteus; without a plugin, this will be the reality for all XMPP/Jabber IM clients, including Trillian Pro.) For this reason, I'll be sticking with Plugoo for my widgit needs. Besides, Plugoo is still the only game in town for another feature I find essential for virtual reference service -- the ability to send offline messages as emails, not simply as a cached instant message.

Last week, I posted about Plugoo and its ability to send IMs from your website directly to your IM client. For me, this made Plugoo preferable to MeeboMe and its requirement that you monitor messages from within the Meebo website.

Well, Chad Boeninger has a detailed post over at Library Voice outlining how to use the IM client Pidgin (once known as GAIM) to monitor MeeboMe widgits. It requires you to install a plugin for Pidgin and fiddle with the settings, but the overall work to get it up and running appears minimal. Better yet, according to one commenter, this little trick is workable with any IM client that supports XMPP.

So I did a little digging. And it turns out MeeboMe DOES work with any XMPP compatible client. (If you have no idea whether your client supports XMPP, check to see if you can add an a Jabber account. You can? The you're probably good to go.) So as of an hour ago I'm monitoring all of my MeeboMe widgits with Adium, the IM client I already use anyway. Trillian should also work, but you'll have to buy the Pro version to make this work. (I haven't tested this on Trillian Pro yet, so don't take my word for it.) This isn't quite the same as Plugoo, which actually forwards messages to your AIM, MSN, Yahoo or Google Talk screenname, but it certainly closes the functionality gap considerably.

[Library Voice] MeeboMe and Pidgin is like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (via The Distant Librarian)

An interesting post this morning from Merlin Mann on his 43 Folders blog about recent research on multitasking. This includes yesterday's New York Times article which cites several studies including one looking at Microsoft workers and the effects of interrupts on their work:

a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.

The effects on the individual are measurable in terms of cognitive performance the NYT article also cites a startling figure for the overall cost of multitasking.

The productivity lost by overtaxed multitaskers cannot be measured precisely, but it is probably a lot. Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex, a business-research firm, estimates the cost of interruptions to the American economy at nearly $650 billion a year.

So far none of the studies have directly discussed the impact of IM's during Torts...

Our IM Reference Service pilot project has begun...

http://www.law.unlv.edu/library/im.html

Meebo, a browser based instant messaging client, is the best chat option for patrons in libraries that block IM on public computers. Unfortunately, by being locked into a browser window, Meebo doesn't do a very good job of notifying users when new messages arrive if that particular browser window isn't active. This problem is only exaggerated in a tabbed browser environment, where individual tabs within a window can't be manipulated to flash or otherwise alert users.

Well, a developer in the United Kingdom has taken the first step towards providing a solution. "Tones" has created an extension for Flock (a web browser based on Firefox) that places the Meebo IM interface into a sidebar window that remains visible as the user surfs other sites and switches between various tabs.

Of course, this doesn't solve all the user notification problems. The Flock browser must still be in the foreground for the user to see new messages as the arrive. In addition, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch points out that a number of glitches in the way that IM windows are sized within the sidebar make the extension too difficult to use for the time being.

Still, assuming the kinks can be worked out, this certainly provides hope for IM users who use a tabbed browser and want (or need) to integrate their chat sessions into the browser environment. Could a Firefox extension be far behind?

Just another illustration of the futility of crippling public workstations in libraries.

I just finished meeting with the reference staff concerning IM reference, and I'm happy to say that we're set to begin offering our reference services via instant messaging to our students, faculty, and staff over the next few weeks (first as a summer-long pilot project -- then as a permanent service). We just need to obtain a catchy screen name, get Trillian installed on everyone's machine's, and schedule "desk" coverage for the summer. In addition, we'll also begin offering reference service via email, a service that's long, long overdue for us.

One of the major advantages we have in implementing a virtual reference plan is affiliation with an institution already experienced in providing IM reference service: UNLV's Lied Library (the university's main campus library). The librarians at Lied have been providing chat reference in one form or another for quite some time, including service via the major IM providers (AIM, MSN, and Yahoo!) for the last year. Hopefully, we can work with Lied on some mutually useful collaborations once we're up to speed with our own service. (For more on Lied's IM service, read Sherri Vokey's post on the topic from last year over at schwagbag.)

Fortunately, this looks to be just the first major development for us in a summer filled with technology projects. More to come soon.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm pitching (*cough* mandating *cough*) the idea of IM (instant messaging) reference service to the law library reference staff. Late last night, just as I was about to break down and start prepping my presentation, a huge time-saver appeared in my Bloglines subscriptions in the form of a PowerPoint presentation on that exact topic, courtesy of Sarah Houghton at LibrarianInBlack:

Anyone is welcome to take the presentation, modify it to your heart's content, and use it to explain and promote the use of social software in your own library. Talk to your administrators; rev up the people looking longingly at retirement. We're all in this together, and this might be one way to get everyone on the same page (or at least in the same chapter).

Granted, a law library's patron base doesn't consist of too many kids and teens (which are the focus of much of Sarah's presentation), but the data she provides is, for the most part, easily translatable to the twentysomethings that make up the bulk of the law school student body. All in all, a great introduction for anyone contemplating IM reference service.

[LibrarianInBlack]IM and Other Social Software for Libraries