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)

Over at WisBlawg yesterday, Bonnie Shucha posted about Plugoo, a widget you can insert into your website to allow visitors to chat with you directly from the web page. For several months I've been using MeeboMe to accomplish this same feat in an internal clinic website I run. (Attendees of the CALI session I co-presented with UNLV's Megan Chaney back in May saw the MeeboMe widget in action on our site.) With Meebo, however, the only way to make myself available for chat sessions with visitors was to log in to the Meebo website and then constantly monitor that Firefox tab for new messages.

With Plugoo, however, these messages come directly to my AIM screenname, so it integrates completely with the IM client (Adium) I'm already using. Better still, since my AIM account forwards IMs to my cell phone when I'm not online, messages sent from the website also get forwarded to my cell phone. Granted, in many situations it's probably not advisable to use a screenname that forwards (particularly if you enjoy sleep), but it's still very cool to know that the option is available and works -- flawlessly.

Many librarians already know about Plugoo, and the debate between advocates of Plugoo and Meebo has been ongoing for awhile. Until now, however, the major drawback for Plugoo was its inability to handle multiple simultaneous chats. If one user was already chatting with you, other users would have to wait for that conversation to close before they could chat with you. For this reason, I stuck to Meebo.

As Bonnie points out in her post, however, that limitation is now gone. Plugoo now supports multiple chats. With this problem fixed, I saw no reason not to switch from Meebo to Plugoo.

One of my favorite features of Plugoo is the user's ability to detach the conversation from the webpage. By detaching the conversation, the user can navigate away from the web page on which it appears but still maintain the chat session with me. This was a major problem on the internal website. I even posted the Meebo widget on every page of the site, but as soon as the user loaded a new page, the previous chat session was gone, meaning access to previous messages in the conversation was completely lost.

Helperoo launched earlier this week, offering a low cost, web-based email support system for small businesses. The service allows companies to forward support email into a system that functions as a ticketing system to keep track of open and closed support requests. This could potentially be used by a library to keep track an respond to email reference questions.

In fact, I've been turning over such an idea in my head for about six months now, but with some different features that are geared more to the specific needs of a small library reference staff. Here's a taste of what I'm thinking.

1. Patron submits question
A library patron fills out a web form that requests a patron's name, contact information, and question.

2. System processes question automatically
When the patron hits the submit button, a number of things happen within the system immediately. First, a librarian is automatically assigned to the question based on a simple rotation system. The question is forwarded automatically to the assigned librarian's email address. The question is also posted as an entry into a blog-like site that is password protected and only accessible to librarians. This provides a central archive of all questions so that a reference supervisor can keep track of statistics and maintain a knowledge management system for future reference.

3. Librarian responds
The librarian simply replies to the email question forwarded by the system. The system catches the reply and passes it along to the patron. This step allows the system to strip the librarian's personal email from the message and insert the generic reference desk email address, thus all correspondence comes from the same address, providing a central contact point for patrons. This also protects the librarian from revealing personal contact information, if that is a concern (as it sometimes is when dealing with public patrons). In addition, the system recognizes which question the reply is associated with and posts the reply as a comment to the question on the password-protected blog.

4. Subsequent communication
Should the patron reply to the librarian, the system will once again recognize the question with which it associated and a) post it as another comment to the question on the blog and b) forward it to the librarian assigned to the question.

At any time in this process, a librarian can post to the blog system instead of using email. This shouldn't hinder the process at all. A comment posting will simply result in an email being sent to the patron.

Elmer Masters has already accomplished the two way interaction between blog and email with the Teknoids listserv and archive using Drupal and some of its add on modules. (Drupal is also the platform for Library Laws and just about every web site I've built in the last 18 months). Elmer doesn't alter the email addresses in any way, but in his environment there's no need to.

For me, the killer app here -- and one that simple systems like Helperoo don't address -- is the automatic assignment of a librarian to each question on a rotational basis. Honestly, if a reference supervisor has to go in and manually assign questions, she could just as easily forward the question to that librarian manually as well. But with that step automated, the system becomes far more efficient.

This system really only seems applicable to libraries dealing with public patrons, because direct and personal interaction between faculty and librarians is typically deemed a good thing at universities, especially at institutions where a liaison system exists. Many public libraries also desire such personal relationships with patrons, meaning this system's efficiency might not be worth it unless the system does NOT strip the librarian's info from messages (an easy enough task, surely). For law libraries that deal with members of the public, however, some measure of anonymity might be desirable. More importantly, with a central system in place, it ensures that patrons will still have a central contact point with the library even if the librarian who previously helped them goes on vacation or quits.

Now if I just had the time to build this thing.

Back in March I spotlighted GrandCentral, a web startup that offers a single phone number to ring all your phones -- home, office, cell -- simultaneously. The company has gotten a lot of attention from the likes of the New York Times, and now they've gotten some serious attention from Google. According to reports, the two companies have spent the last few days ironing out the details for the search giant to purchase GrandCentral, and some insiders claim a deal has already been reached for $50 million.

What would Google do with the fledgling communications company? TechCrunch offers a logical speculation: a combination of its other communications tools (GMail and GTalk) to create a viable competitor to Skype.

So far both sides are staying mum on the merger.

[TechCrunch] Google To Acquire GrandCentral

Speaking of art museums, the New York Times has a story today about museums that offer audio tours for guests via iPods and cellphones...

With more than 200 million cellphones in use on the planet, museum guide companies like Antenna Audio are creating new ways for museum visitors to access information at a point of interest. In a museum, cellphone content is generally accessed with a telephone number posted at a specific artwork. Visitors can access information about it by tapping in a code, like *278 (ART), on the keypad.

Then there is the iPod. Apple has sold 90 million iPod media players since their introduction in 2001, said Greg Joswiak, vice president for product marketing at iPod. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others, offers a number of online “artcast” tours that iPod users can download before going to the museum. The museum also provides visitors with iPods preloaded with digital tours.

This idea was mentioned by Megan Fox of Simmons College last March at the 2006 Computers in Libraries conference. Shortly thereafter, one of UNLV's legal writing professors, Jean Whitney, created an MP3 audio tour of our library for her students about a year ago. The sight of students wandering our collection while wearing ear buds was very cool indeed.

[New York Times] IPods and Cellphones Join the Audio Tour

My last post discussed using call forwarding on Skype as a method for having one phone number that rings all your phones (e.g., home, office, and cell) simultaneously (with obvious applications for remote phone reference service). Well, GrandCentral, a Web 2.0 startup, is offering the same convenience, along with a host of other novel features, including centralized voicemail, the ability to switch between phones in the middle of a call, customized outgoing messages for different types of callers, spam filters for telemarketers, and the ability to listen in live as callers leave a voicemail message and the option to pick up the call at anytime during the recording.

GrandCentral got a big boost last Thursday when David Pogue published a story about the service in the New York Times. Pogue does a better job explaining the features of the service than the company's website:

From now on, whenever somebody dials your new uninumber, all of your phones ring simultaneously, like something out of “The Lawnmower Man.”

No longer will anyone have to track you down by dialing each of your numbers in turn. No longer does it matter if you’re home, at work or on the road. Your new GrandCentral phone number will find you.

As a bonus, all messages now land in a single voice mail box. You can listen to them in any of three ways. First, you can dial in from any phone (a text message arrives on your cellphone to let you know when you have voice mail). If you call in from your cellphone, you don’t even have to enter your password first.[...]

All of this, incredibly, is free if you have only two phone numbers to consolidate. A premium plan, at $15 a month, offers more of everything: up to six phone numbers unified, voice messages preserved forever instead of for 30 days, and so on, along with a Web site free of ads.

In my post on Skype, I fretted over the likelihood that my office or cell's voicemail would pick up the call before Skype's centralized message service could kick in. GrandCentral has actually solved that problem. While callers hear the traditional ringing sound, you are met with a menu of choices when you pick up (take call, send to voicemail, send to voicemail and listen, etc.), and your phone is not actually connected to the caller unless you choose to take the call. If you don't select an option within 15 seconds, the caller is automatically forwarded to your GrandCentral voicemail. Even if your cell voicemail picks up, the caller never hears it and no message gets left on your cell.

The biggest problem with GrandCentral? Getting people to actually call your new number, particularly in a work environment with short extensions and in-house phone directories.