I’ve been around the instant messenger block more than once in my years. I can remember when ICQ was the biggest thing at RIT and that’s all everyone used to instant message. Now all of the big players have their own platform; AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, and so on, and there are many others with more specific purposes, even some for enterprise use. You almost need to have an account on each of the networks to keep in touch with all of your friends.

There are a few clients out there that help to organize the chaos of multiple IM networks. To name just a couple, Trillian and Meebo both have solutions that do a good job; Trillian being an installable client and Meebo a web client. There’s a new client on the horizon that’s really caught my attention and is promising to beat any of the others, at least in my book. Digsby allows users to connect to multiple IM networks to organize them into one client, but also allows you to interact with some of the social networking platforms, and check, send, and read emails all in one very customizable program. I’m proud to say also that the concept originated with a fellow RIT student.

I’ve been using Digsby for a little while now, and from what I’ve seen it’s got a lot of promise. It’s not without its bugs, but they will be resolved in time. I’ve been (and still am) a huge supporter of Trillian and have been beta testing Trillian Astra for quite some time now, but Digsby has the potential to rival and surpass Trillian’s functionality. I’m very excited to see how this plays out, but for now I’m happy to test Digsby and provide my thoughts and comments, and I suggest you do the same!

Go to the Digsby homepage