Multiservice Instant Messaging with imo.im
Finally an instant messenger app that handles all the service protocols you could ever want and works everywhere.
Lots of IM Protocols Make Me Crazy
If you spend a lot of time on the Internet it’s a good bet that you do your fair share of instant messaging. I’ll also bet you use multiple IM services because many of your friends use only one and they all seem to be different.
Of course each IM service provides its own client application, but the trouble is you have to run several of these apps to communicate with all these services.
Imo.im is a multiservice IM client that provides a nifty solution to this problem. Imo.im supports all these major IM protocols:
- MSN
- Yahoo
- GoogleTalk
- AIM/ICQ
- Jabber
- Skype
It also supports messaging for Facebook, MySpace, VKontakte, Hyves and Steam services so you can keep up with your online friends who use nothing but their social networking services for Internet communication.
And, It's a Google Chrome App
Imo.im is an application that runs within the Google Chrome browser. If you don’t already use Chrome, I highly recommend you download and try it. It is a very fast browser that has a large number of extensions and themes written for it and runs on every flavor of Windows, Mac OS and even Linux.
To install imo.im follow this procedure:
- Click on the “+” tab at the top of Chrome.
- If you see a list of most recently visited web pages, click on the > symbol on the right to go to the installed applications page.
- Click on the Chrome Web Store icon.
- Enter “imo” in the search box at the top of store page.
- Click on the “+ ADD TO CHROME” button.
- Click on the “Install” button in the “Confirm Installation” dialog box.
- To add account just click on gear icon in the upper right hand corner of the imo screen.
- Click on the “Add” button then select the accounts you want to add.
Rather than open accounts one at a time, you can link all the accounts together so that you when you login into one, imo.im will log you into them all. You can even elect to have imo.im remember this login sequence so that these accounts become active as soon as you open imo.im in a Chrome tab.
Since imo.im operates within Google Chrome it runs wherever you use Chrome. Imo.im has versions that run on Android and iOS smart phones and tablets, so you can have a uniform IM experience across all your computing platforms.
About vhargrave
Vic Hargrave lives in the SF Bay Area. He has over 20 years experience as a software developer and manager. He blogs on Internet security and other tech topics at VicHargrave.com.
