At age 76, my friend’s dad just bought his first computer: a MacBook. He’s getting set up with all of the best web based tools to use, including gmail. He was getting a computer lesson from his son-in-law and I chatted him up. Despite what he says, he’s doing an excellent job chatting. He even TOTALLY gets how to capitalize the RIGHT WORDS!

Let this serve as more evidence that age does not necessarily have anything to do with whether someone can use computers. Every reference librarian in your building could do IM reference if they really wanted to.

P.S. Just making sure you’ve seen that google is finally using its 5% stake in AOL for something: AIM chatting in Gmail.

A while back I posted about a downloadable IM client from MySpace and it is now available for download. They’re calling it MySpaceIM. The really funny thing about this is that just yesterday, some news came out about AIM’s forthcoming AIM Pages [article, screenshot], which is being touted as a MySpace killer. Anyone with an AIM screen name will have access to a create a page: www.aim.com/[name here]. This is another potential place for your library’s content to be discovered. The whims of the market make doing a great job of putting a library’s content into popular websites a potentially time consuming task, but one that has great promise for increased exposure and relevance. I’m just waiting for some large, metropolitan library system to have an official presence on AskMetafilter. Imagine the cred the library would get from its town’s geek and netizen population, a group of people who often get their content needs met without libraries.

MySpace and AIM will only woo people to their products if there’s serious value added over sticking with the IM client/online profile service in which they’re already firmly entrenched. Which illustrates that libraries need to clearly define and promote the value we add to the content and computers in our buildings to woo people that are firmly entrenched in non-library content acquisition and use.

The slashdot thread about google’s acquisition of 5% of AOL was of interest to me because of GTalk and AIM. The deal is all about advertisements, and all about IM (which itself is about advertisements (scanning our conversations?), and probably VOIP). Even though Trillian and Meebo make it less necessary to have network interoperability, it’ll be nice to see two networks communicating with each other. As for Google getting tainted with some of AOL’s evil, one slashdotter stated:

I swear, if I get ONE damned Google CD in the mail, EVER - I’ll go to a LIBRARY before I look something up on Google again.

Er…thanks for thinking of us!

AOL Instant Messenger is looking to gain some real estate on your website through AIM Presence. A very short registration gives you a line of code to paste into your site. This code will display one of a six small icons, indicating whether you are online, offline, idle, away, or on mobile AIM. Like so:

(this is likely to be the ‘offline’ icon today)

With this release, AOL has reached agreements with SixApart, Facebook and LinkedIn to allow their users to add online presence to their profiles. In other words, people might get accustomed to seeing a graphical representation of a website author’s online status - IMming libraries, I’m looking in your direction! I’ve already seen this on a few library sites, accomplished by a third-party solution. Code straight from AIM is likely to be more reliable, and it probably won’t be long before MSN and Yahoo join in with an effort.

I think that AIM did this right. It is simple to get the code, and the result isn’t garish or somehow advert laden. Instead, it is pretty plain and simple. Does anyone feel like reading the TOS?

[via bigblueball]

Most of us probably know that there are a few Instant Messaging networks competing for users. Because of this, IMming libraries might be best served by being available via all of them (as to not alienate any potential users).

Many people that find IM to be a killer app use Trillian to connect to all the major networks at the same time.

IM junkies know that If there’s no client available on a machine, there are web-based versions of the major IM networks:

AIM Express

YIM Web

MSN Web

Chances are that your patrons using these tools in your library. Maybe even as.you.speak! Anywho, now there’s a web-based Trillian like IM program that will let IMmers connect with 4 networks simultaneously. It is called meebo. It is in alpha right now, and many people are trying it out, so it is a bit slow.

I bring your attention to meebo because it might come in handy for you personally, or it might enable you to try out an IM program in your library if your IT department has the IM ports blocked.

Evidently the rumors of a Google IM (Google Talk?) program are true. It is reported that Google will unveil an IM program tomorrow.

The interoperability of email made it easy for people to be interested in and switch to Gmail, but they won’t have that luxury. I’m very curious how they’ll try to lure the 41.6 million AIM users away from their product of choice (let alone the 19.1 million Y!M and 14.6 MSNM users).

It is possible to connect to talk.google.com using Trillian as a Jabber account, but it can’t be used because there is no way to set up accounts. [via big blueball, new york times, LA Times]

Ooh, imagine a merging of Google Talk and Google Maps. That could be fun!

update: If you’re chomping at the bit for this news, talk.google.com redirects to google.com/talk so that’s probably a good place to look.

Libraries are concerned with the security of their computers. This is a good thing. Every time I talk to librarians about IM in their libraries, they ask about the security risks involved. Because of this I’m always on the lookout for news related to malware being spread via IM clients.

I’ve read a decent amount of “doom and gloom on the horizon” type articles, but very little about actual events. But this morning Trojan Targets AIM was in my aggregator [via bigblueball].

A Trojan continued to spread Monday among America Online instant messaging clients, and installs its backdoor on the infected PC when trusting users click on a link within the line “Check out this” or “i thought youd wanna see this” from a buddy on their AIM contact list.

Dubbed “Oscarbot” by McAfee and “Doyorg” by Symantec, the Trojan doesn’t spread automatically when users download and run the file linked in the instant message. Instead, it opens a port and listens for instructions on IRC (Internet Relay Channel); the attacker must specifically order each infected machine to start spreading.

It propagates by sending the same message to every buddy in the system’s AOL Instant Messenger client’s address book.

The rest of the article details that the purpose of this is for the creation of zombie networks, and that the usual antivirus software should catch this thing.

Has anyone or anyone you know been infected with this?

The last thing I’m here to do is shill for AOL, but I think the news coming out about Triton, the next generation AIM client, is worth mentioning. It isn’t that its features (from what I’ve read about them) are terribly innovative (or that it has a very original name – cripes, if you’re going to rip off a product, at least try to name it something a bit different). In fact you can read this slashdot thread to see nerds gripe about how the new features of Triton have been in Trillian and GAIM for a long time. But, I think the slashdotters miss an important point: Triton might bring media rich IMming to more people. As far as I can tell, the benefits of using alternative clients to chat with people on AIM have only been enjoyed by power-users so far. Now though, IMers will be getting more sophisticated and more reliant on IM, which means that it is even more important for libraries to be available in this way. Other changes in the software that are of interest to libraries:

there will be no discernible difference between how AOL handles SMS text messages in comparison to PC-to-PC instant messages. WOW! If Triton can send and receive text messages it would be a no-brainer for libraries.

Communication features are exposed through Triton’s “Quicknote” dialog, which replaces the initial IM window and provides a snapshot of user information. Quicknote lists a variety of ways to contact a buddy and will be expanded with more options as new features are added in subsequent beta builds. This could be a potential spot of (the quite popular buzz word) presence for libraries.

AOL must be feeling from pressure from Skype, because evidently there is an emphasis on VOIP

Also, it will be open to third party developers’ plug-ins, which is a first for AIM.

From what I read, the beta Triton is very much in beta phase, but here’s the download if anyone wants to play. [link]

For more, read AOL Testing Next Generation AIM Client from betanews.com

[update: i forgot to add that in the screenshot for Triton there’s an option to “Report IM Spam which I hope isn’t a portent of things to come…]

You may have read that America Online recently altered their Terms of Service for AOL Instant Messenger (and their other services). The good news is that the Internet community kinda flipped out, raised some Cain, and they changed/clarified their policy.

You can imagine that when it came out that the TOS in place since February read, “You waive any right to privacy” people were alarmed. IMming librarians should have been included in this group. There’s more to the old TOS that was scary. Read:

Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

That’s some frightening stuff. I haven’t read through the new TOS because they are quite long, but here they are if you’re interested. AIM Terms of Service.

From cnet: AOL clarifies IM privacy guarantee

A colleague sent me a sad email regarding Instant Messaging at her library. Evidently she was experimenting with it, hoping to increase communication within her library. The IT department found the IM software on her computer and took it off. The gall!

While this might be a lesson for others highlighting the advantages of an administrative approved program (programs won’t be taken off of your computers if the admin want them there), this incident could also highlight another route. Since this route is already familiar to many of the younger people that use computers at school and in libraries, librarians should know about it too: AIM Express.

AIM Express is a web-based version of AOL Instant Messenger that can be used from almost any computer. There is no download necessary, therefore, there’s nothing that can be erased from your computer. If you don’t have IM programs installed on your public computers, I’d bet that people have circumvented this shortcoming by using AIM Express.

Those computers that don’t meet the system requirements for AIM express can use an older version of AIM Express.

Walking Paper supports surreptitious use of IM programs for positive endeavors but isn’t responsible for any possible resulting hot water.