Usher Blogs

Ironic...

Exactly one day after I all high and mighty about using IM and presence I receive my first instance of SPIM (IM Spam) courtesy of the MSN network and I was unable to access my Yahoo contacts through the Gaim client I use. 

(Full disclosure, Jabber, Inc. an enterprise IM and presence leader is my client).  The SPIM issue is a very strong argument for using an enterprise solution for business.  The Yahoo issue today exposes one of the fundamental problems of business IM, we're all using different services and protocols and rely on too many hacks to get everything working in a single window.  Its time for the consumer services to get serious about interoperation and federation so that IM becomes much more pervasive and useful as a business tool.

There are Only Two Kinds of People...

that I do business with: those that at least tactically understand presence and use IM regularly, and those that don't.

Those of you I regularly play phone tag with know who you are. Better, faster, more coordinated is the work product produced for your peers when we're regularly sharing presence information.  Qualitative data to be sure, but I'd be willing to bet the cost of quantitative analysis that I'm right.