Robin Good pens an interminably long post that, I think, is elongated in the hopes of standing as the definitive and comprehensive rationale for the emergence of Instant Messaging 2.0. However, he misses the point by enumerating myriad flavors of IM (SMS, voice, video, etc.) and the various sorts of services that are being built on top of the critical core functions. Those will keep changing and eveolving, but the core stuff will remain fairly constant for this next era of IM. And worse of all, by adding almost superfluous adjectives, he waters down the core message of two expressions that I have been using to indicate whats is going on, and he does so without attribution, which may be of less importance to the world as a whole but of some interest to me. Note, I am not going to trademark my catch phrases, and I will send no cease-and-desist letters, but I will howl like a stuck pig when bad blogging goes on.
- For the past several years, one of my mantras has been the buddylist is the center of the universe (sometimes with a 2.0 suffix, to indicate the new world created by a transition to this mindset). Robin's inelegant version -- "Secure Instant Messaging Set To Be The Center Of Your Communication And Collaboration Universes" overelaborates, waters down, and draws attention to relatively unimportant aspects of IM, and loses the defining thrust of instant messaging's central role in our lives, not just as an aid to collaboration and communication. Way too tame.
The buddylist -- the representation of our place in a connected, online web of contacts -- is the central motif of web culture, and will become a primary foundational characteristic of all successful social tools going forward.
- Instant Messaging 2.0 -- I introduced this term recently, based on the Yahoo announcement of a plugin architecture for Yahoo Messenger. The point is that the public instant messaging networks -- all of which are moving, at long, long last -- to serving as presence and messaging infrastructure, can now serve as the basis upon which an ecosystem of instant messaging enabled social tools can be constructed. We have given that concept lip service for years, and numerous companies have been started that attempted to realize it (like my own ill-fated experiences as Ikimbo), but with large and growing IM networks -- MSN, AIM, Yahoo, and soon Google -- taking this tack, things will really change. The major IM carriers now realize their cornerstone role is different than the model they have been pursuing, and they are looking beyond ad revenue to something much more fundamental: serving as the new plumbing for a real-time, always-on, connected economy.
Robin linked to David Coleman's post arguing with my Instant Messaging 2.0 piece, but neglects to link to my intial argument, here, which isn't surprising, since David didn't either. Poor blogging, guys. (David actually only relates bumping into me at the CTC 2006 conference, and then veers into his arguments, never even stating that I brought up the term in our discussion.)
Robin's anecdotes about printing business cards in April 2005 with only IM addresses is also antiquated: Ed Simnett of Microsoft gave a presentation at one of the early Instant Messaging Planet confeences, back in 2002 or 2003, where he used a constantly evolving business card as the central motif of a presentation about the impact of instant messaging on communications and digital identity, and one of the versions was a series of IM handles. Notably, the end goal was to have that proliferation of identities winnow down to one.
At any rate, I agree that the buddylist is the center of the new universe we are moving into, and that we are witnessing a transformation of the instant messaging 1.0 applications into instant messaging 2.0 platforms, so at least Robin is pointed in the right direction even when he overdoes the adjectives and forgets his antecedents.
Dear Stowe,
I sincerely apologize for not having linked (nor found) your original piece on instant messaging 2.0, and I would much appreciate you making it more explicit where this actually is.
I may have been missing also on your original idea that the buddy list is the center of interest however long ago you have written it.
I am clearly not as good and able to see the future coming as you have been and I am very fine to credit you with such authority.
I am a tiny bit disappointed that you need again to treat others as smart asses or dumb unintelligent people to drive your points.
In fact I would have much appreciated less of an attack on me and more of an explanation of what is really different between your original ideas and what I wrote.
In any case, since this is worried you apparently the most, I am publicly acknowledging your having coined and first used the term Instant Messaging 2.0.
Posted by: Robin Good | June 23, 2006 at 06:16 AM
Robin - Actually, I think you are a very smart person, so apologies if that wasn't clear. And I suggested that the problem was likely due to David's not mentioning the original piece, which is Yahoo Releases New Messenger: Instant Messaging 2.0.
And the cause for my concern: I have seen a number of other memes rise in our brave new world where the original sources be forgotten. Like Ed Rogers and his Diffusion of Innovations research being lost when Geoff Moore's Crossing The Chasm came out. But it may be a pure case of convergence, in this case.
And, I have been thinking about using the term in another way, that I will send you email about.
Posted by: Stowe Boyd | June 23, 2006 at 06:46 AM
Stowe,
Your "Here" link has an incorrect link. the "www.stoweboyd.com/message" is repeated in the link - you may want to correct it to make it easier for people to get to your original argument.
Other than that I am excited by the prospect of IM2.0. It is good to see one of the major players moving towards a pluggable architecture. Finally one of the majors get's it and realises that they don't have a monopoly on good IM related ideas.
When the updated mac client arrives I may have to brush off my Yahoo id...
Posted by: Mark Scrimshire | June 23, 2006 at 06:47 AM
I'm on blogging hiatus now, but one of the main messages of my blog http://everybuddy.org was the premise that we as move to the edge, conversation comes to the fore, and IM is the place we will land, not on a web page.
Here is the original post, in all its half-baked goodness:
http://everybuddy.org/2005/10/08/my-new-web-world/
Posted by: Matt Terenzio | June 23, 2006 at 09:31 AM