[Web4lib] Meebo/Plugoo/Libraryh3lp

[Chad F. Boeninger]

I've been using the Digsby widget and client for three months on my 
wiki, blog, and other contact pages.  It's nice in that the widget 
support is built into the digsby client.  With the meebo widget, I was 
running Pidgin with the Meebome plugin so that I could access AIM, 
Yahoo, GTalk, and MeeboMe all through one interface, pidgin.  I 
personally prefer a desktop multi-protocol client to Meebo, as I find 
the desktop clients to be a bit faster.

I mainly switched to digsby to try something new, and I've been pleased. 
  Occasionally  pidgin would crash, which was likely the result of 
connection issues with the meebome widget.  This generally was not a 
problem, but on occasion pidgin can get caught in a crash loop.  In the 
3 months that I have used it, digsby appears to be more stable.   Also, 
digsby allows for connecting to Facebook, Twitter, and email all within 
a single interface.   Digsby offers a lot of features, and the only 
complaint I have right now is that the client can take up quite a bit of 
memory.  The digsby developers claim that the next release should 
resolve the problems with memory leaks.

I've also looked at the libraryh3lp product and I like what I see.  It's 
got a lot of features which would be quite nice to have, such as the 
ability to transfer between operators.  This has wonderful potential for 
larger libraries and consortia who wish to monitor a chat service with 
multiple operators.  For our general IM reference service, we have used 
the meebome widget for two years, and my colleagues continue to be happy 
with the service. I also have colleagues who monitor their personal 
meebo widgets, and they seem to be pleased with how its working. 
However, as I type this, we can't log into meebo, which does make other 
services tempting to try.

Hope this helps,
Chad

Tom Keays wrote:
> Another Meebo-like widget service is Digsby. Several libraries use it.
> I don't know how it compares to Meebo other than the similarity of
> appearance.
> 
> http://widget.digsby.com/
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
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> 

-- 
Chad F. Boeninger
Reference & Instruction Technology Coordinator
Business & Economics Subject Specialist
Ohio University Libraries
boeninge at ohio.edu
(740) 597-1932
AIM & Yahoo IM:  cfboeninger
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/businessblog/
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/bizwiki/