AIMSpace or Outerspace?

Wow. The hype and antihype is really swirling around the direction that AOL is taking with the project formerly know as AIMSpace, and which now looks likely to be called Head On, as I wrote about yesterday. The “MySpace Killer” meme culminated in a Business 2.0 blurb:

Indeed, word on the street has been that Time Warner’s (Research) AOL would use its AIM instant messenger as a platform to jump on the social networking bandwagon. The B2Day blog reported in March that the project was codenamed “AIMSpace” and was expected to launch in mid-April. AOL exec Tina Sharkey argued that AIM was already the “largest social network in the world.” The rumors got a bit louder this morning as AOL program manager Armughan Javaid confirmed existence of AOL’s MySpace killer, claiming the service “will be open for non-members, and it will be kick-ass!”

Ted Leonsis jumps in:

Working on a product that “kills” another, popular product is just so…1999.

Here’s a better way of looking at it. The AIM Buddy List (which was introduced 10 years ago) was the orignial social network, and it has 43 million AIM and Buddy List users. We’re working on adding functionality to AIM that will really open it up — allowing developers, partners, and users to take part. It’s going to be fun. Rather than thinking of it as a killer of anything, let alone MySpace, it will allow our millions of users to express themselves in new and interesting ways and become a catalyst for new communities to grow and flourish. We’ll have more to say about it soon.

Jason Calacanis chimes in with the nobody is killing anybody spin. Doesn’t anyone remember 1-2-3 killing Multiplan, or Word killing Wordstar? OS/2? Things do get killed off, people. Let’s not get too “sweetness and light” over this.

And Mike at TechDirt argues that AOL is two years too late, and that MySpace can’t be toppled.

The reality is that for most adults, MySpace is a social phenomenon that has not made a direct impact on us. It has been primarily limited to young adults and teens. There is still the opportunity for a social network for the rest of us, and it could well be based on the AIM buddylist. 43 million users is a good start.

I totally believe that the buddylist is the center of the “universe 2.0”, this new world we are in: denizens of a newly enhanced online experience. AOL has a chance to make a run at the untapped market for a significantly improved social networking experience. The LinkedIn generation of so-called professional social networking 1.0 apps are so lame that they are ripe for obliteration by a new approach, and as I have been trumpeting for years, the instant messaging buddylist should be the heart of such an approach. There is an opportunity to kill off some or all of those apps, if not MySpace and Facebook, and AOL has a good story brewing, even if they are reluctant to actually show us anything yet. Or at least me.

I had lunch with some AOL guys yesterday, who said more or less the same thing as Ted. Stay tuned, its going to be cool, we can’t tell you when it’s coming out, but soon, real soon, like in May, maybe. They had me diverted by pointing me to the Triton beta — not the current Triton release, mind you — which I will fiddle with over the weekend on my son’s PC since it’s Windows only. Apparently it incorporates a lot of the Nerdvana IM client features I have been wishing for. For example, your buddies’ presence indicates more than just on/off status. It can indicate new blog posts, they tell me.

Well, I am ready for something new, but if it all turns out to be Windows only, I am going to howl like a stuck pig.

AIMSpace or Outerspace?

Wow. The hype and antihype is really swirling around the direction that AOL is taking with the project formerly know as AIMSpace, and which now looks likely to be called Head On, as I wrote about yesterday. The “MySpace Killer” meme culminated in a Business 2.0 blurb:

Indeed, word on the street has been that Time Warner’s (Research) AOL would use its AIM instant messenger as a platform to jump on the social networking bandwagon. The B2Day blog reported in March that the project was codenamed “AIMSpace” and was expected to launch in mid-April. AOL exec Tina Sharkey argued that AIM was already the “largest social network in the world.” The rumors got a bit louder this morning as AOL program manager Armughan Javaid confirmed existence of AOL’s MySpace killer, claiming the service “will be open for non-members, and it will be kick-ass!”

Ted Leonsis jumps in:

Working on a product that “kills” another, popular product is just so…1999.

Here’s a better way of looking at it. The AIM Buddy List (which was introduced 10 years ago) was the orignial social network, and it has 43 million AIM and Buddy List users. We’re working on adding functionality to AIM that will really open it up — allowing developers, partners, and users to take part. It’s going to be fun. Rather than thinking of it as a killer of anything, let alone MySpace, it will allow our millions of users to express themselves in new and interesting ways and become a catalyst for new communities to grow and flourish. We’ll have more to say about it soon.

Jason Calacanis chimes in with the nobody is killing anybody spin. Doesn’t anyone remember 1-2-3 killing Multiplan, or Word killing Wordstar? OS/2? Things do get killed off, people. Let’s not get too “sweetness and light” over this.

And Mike at TechDirt argues that AOL is two years too late, and that MySpace can’t be toppled.

The reality is that for most adults, MySpace is a social phenomenon that has not made a direct impact on us. It has been primarily limited to young adults and teens. There is still the opportunity for a social network for the rest of us, and it could well be based on the AIM buddylist. 43 million users is a good start.

I totally believe that the buddylist is the center of the “universe 2.0”, this new world we are in: denizens of a newly enhanced online experience. AOL has a chance to make a run at the untapped market for a significantly improved social networking experience. The LinkedIn generation of so-called professional social networking 1.0 apps are so lame that they are ripe for obliteration by a new approach, and as I have been trumpeting for years, the instant messaging buddylist should be the heart of such an approach. There is an opportunity to kill off some or all of those apps, if not MySpace and Facebook, and AOL has a good story brewing, even if they are reluctant to actually show us anything yet. Or at least me.

I had lunch with some AOL guys yesterday, who said more or less the same thing as Ted. Stay tuned, its going to be cool, we can’t tell you when it’s coming out, but soon, real soon, like in May, maybe. They had me diverted by pointing me to the Triton beta — not the current Triton release, mind you — which I will fiddle with over the weekend on my son’s PC since it’s Windows only. Apparently it incorporates a lot of the Nerdvana IM client features I have been wishing for. For example, your buddies’ presence indicates more than just on/off status. It can indicate new blog posts, they tell me.

Well, I am ready for something new, but if it all turns out to be Windows only, I am going to howl like a stuck pig.

Is it Head On or AIMSpace?

There have been a number of recent posts about AOL’s plans to launch a new social networking app, like Jason Calacanis’ recent piece where he simply — and enigmatically — reprints a Dave Winer one-liner — “I just heard a rumor that AOL is going to challenge MySpace, “head on,” to be announced in approximately two weeks.” — and then comments, “I know nothing. :-)”.

AIMspace is the internal project name, and it’s not clear if Winer is suggesting that the name of the product will be “Head On”.

But I know from discussions with folks like Tina Sharkey that AOL is planning to roll out a lot of stuff over the next few months, and that the buddylist is very much the center of their social universe. No surprise, considering what an asset AIM is.

I am having lunch with some AOL folks today, so maybe they will tell me something substantive, although I bet they won’t let me publish a word.

First Look: Critical Path’s Contact-Centric Messaging

I stumbled across a press release [pointer from Christopher at Social Infrastructure, a new voice] about Critical Path’s New Memova Messaging Solutions for Service Providers that are contact-centric, rather than messaging-centric:

[from the Press Release]

Critical Path’s contact-centric approach puts contacts — rather than the email or messaging application — at the center of the consumer experience. This makes messaging services easier to use, enables consumers to share content amongst their preferred community, and provides complete control over which messages they receive. Leveraging the proven Memova Messaging platform, Universal Contacts and Digital Life help service providers to not only enhance the consumer experience, but also deliver new revenue-generating, value-added services. For example:

— Universal Contacts — With the Universal Contacts solution,

consumers can create safe online communities and communicate

more easily from any device or application. The user’s contact

list is centrally stored on the service provider’s network

server and can be integrated with any or all of their

applications, including email, instant messaging, text

messaging, VoIP, etc. The centralized contact list is also

universally accessible from any device, including PCs, mobile

phones and PDAs. Address books in all applications/devices are

automatically synchronized whenever new contacts are added or

updated. In an effort to eliminate spam and/or provide greater

parental controls, integrated anti-abuse technology enables

users to allow or block senders who are not in their universal

contact list. Users can create closed, safe online communities

by setting up “white lists” and “black lists” that control who

can contact them via Internet or mobile messaging.

— Digital Life — With the Digital Life solution, consumers can

easily exchange photos, videos, music and other multimedia

content with members of their online community. The multimedia

content is stored on the service provider’s network server and

is tied to the user’s universal contact list. The contact list

denotes which members of the list have access to what content.

Subscribers can easily publish content to their personal

blogs, Web sites or RSS feeds and share it with their online

community through email and other mobile messaging

applications. The Digital Life solution allows service

providers to grow online communities by taking advantage of

the growing trends in user-generated content, while enabling

consumers to reap the benefits of high-speed Internet

connectivity through interaction with rich media.

“In the past when subscribers had just one device — a PC — and one form of Internet communication — email — it made sense for the email application to be at the heart of it all. Today, however, messaging services need to be centered around the people subscribers want to communicate with — not the application,” said Donald Dew, CTO, Critical Path. “Already, we’re working with leading service providers in the U.S., Spain and Switzerland to implement contact-centric solutions, helping them to address important issues, such as spam and security, while providing a seamless user experience and reducing infrastructure costs.”

This is an example of the Web 2.0 social architecture beginning to bleed into messaging architecture. People are the center of the universe, not functions like email. The buddylist will slowly emerge as the central metaphor for human interaction, and the various forms of interaction that connect us together will be seen as secondary variations on the themes of communication (email, IM), coordination (to dos, calendars, project planning), and collaboration (shared documents, project blogging).

I have had some hints from folks inside of AOL that the upcoming releases of what has been called AIMSpace might incorporate some of this sort of buddylist-centric architecting of the user experience, but they aren’t saying much, yet.

Campfire: Group Chat for Businesses

37 Signals have launched Campfire, the company’s entry into the real-time chat space.

I spent a few minutes running around with my partner-in-crime, Greg Narain, and the service seem cleanly designed (big surprise), fast (we’ll have to see about that), and extremely intuitive.

As a few seconds of registration, I was quickly presented with my Campfire Lobby (a bit of a mixed metaphor there), and my first chat. I invited Greg in a few seconds, and we were rolling. The chat interface works in the obvious way, by entering text into a box at the foot of the window.

One of the great features of Campfire is uploading of images into the chatstream:

Greg and I apparently use the word ‘neat’ alot, as I found with this search:

And this screenshot shows the obvious business model:

So Jason Fried and Co. are hoping to provide a baseline level of chat, outside the conventional IM networks and chat systems, under the assumption that business is ripe for this sort of service. I buy it, especially if they integrate it into Basecamp, which has not been done yet.

And please do a better and tighter job of integrating chat into Basecamp projects than was done with Writeboards. That is not a seamless integration at all.

I am not sure that Campfire, independent of Basecamp, has a real path forward, even though I am a strong supporter of real-time communication, Web 2.0 apps, and Basecamp. There is a tremendous degree of competition here, these days. Leaving aside IRC — a really entrenched community of hardcore bitheads, there.— there are more and more competitors on every side. Gmail Chat has emerged, along with whatever version of the major IM networks are out there, and now there are literally dozens of VoIP competitors. AOL has big plans for AIMSpace, an IM-based collaboration and social networking scheme. And Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are close behind.

As a Basecamp user, I am dying to see it integrated. As an analyst and student of the space I wonder if the unintegrated Campfire has a solid future. I could be wrong, but I will wait and see.

[Pointer from Steve Rubel].