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I found this article searching at http://www.firstgov.gov. It’s a little old, but it interesting. In it, Montana Senator Conrad Burns compares the potential of instant messaging to that of mail and telephones.
Here’s a brief excerpt:
Quote:quote:
Burns and several Senate colleagues today brought their concerns over IM services to Chairman William Kennard of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Chairman Robert Pitofsky of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FCC is scheduled to meet tomorrow to discuss the issue of “interoperability” of IM systems.“We cannot allow the balkanization of this new service and all its potential, thereby harming consumers’ overarching communications interests,” the senators wrote. “Our telephone and e-mail systems succeed because the traffic among competitors is standardized.”
As IM services expand into other areas like voice delivery, the senators noted that “it will be essential to have interoperability standards already in place.”
Burns earlier raised the issue in March during a hearing on the proposed AOL-Time Warner merger. At the time, he warned that the proposed merger could hinder competition in some areas, particularly with respect to access to IM.
You can read the full article here: http://burns.senate.gov/p000726a.htm
fanatic has spoken
No big surprise. AOL and the rest of the big companies like to think they “own” the users, and are unwilling to share.
=== Absolute power corrupts absolutely ===
OK, so I’m slow………..
But let me get this right.
AOL want interoperability right? They keep telling us that.And they own AIM right? along with ICQ? uh huh.
And neither of those are interoperable? even within themselves?Seems theres some real dumb bastards working at AOL, Should they talk to the guys from Trillian, Odigo, Imici, Jabber, Maxx chat, Vista, The open source guys?, they may even know the rest of em, but they need some real help now. Poor bastards are screwing their own company.
Such a shame.
Meanwhile, more and more apps appear that can block their advertising, hm, now it seems even the advertisers are dumb.It takes a fool to mess something up, and it takes a real fool to really mess it up, they dont need any help. just keep laughing.
Rustedtight.
I can not and will not comment on the lack of interoperability between AOL/AIM and ICQ, however I will disprove many peoples misconceptions of AOL unwilling to open their network up for 3rd party applications.
In 1998, AOL developed their AOL Instant Messenger to utilize a network they dubbed ‘TOC’. ‘TOC’ only supports the basic functionality that most IM services today use as standards:
Basic two way chat
Add a user to a buddy list
Block a user from a said individualLater on in 2000/2001 AOL begin using a new network they called ‘OSCAR’, ‘OSCAR’ has capabilities that are not provided within the ‘TOC’ network:
File Transfers – (A REAL BIG SECURITY NO NO with IM clients, in my personal and professional opinion)
Avatar Display – Oh major feature there!
Graphical display of emoticons – WHOA! I remember when we had to use pure ASCII to display emotions, no loss of functionality there.
yada yada yada…
AOL has opened up the TOC network as it had promised back in 2000, to do it’s part to be fully interoperable with 3rd party clients, however the developers have taken the liberty of being somewhat greedy and try to force AOL to open up their proprietary network of ‘OSCAR’ up for them the use.
I hope this lesson of AOL AIM network techologies was informative yet enlightning.
If it wasn’t I’ll be sure to set the clock alarm for you so that you can wake up in time for work tommorow 😉
BuShWiCk
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