Product Pipeline

Instant messaging and chat have come a long way since the early days of Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Having evolved from a handful of distinct messaging systems (e.g., AIM, Yahoo!, MSN), instant messaging (IM) has matured into one of today's most popular Web 2.0 applications. Besides the ability to chat one-on-one in a messaging program, new messaging tools permit IM and chat directly on web sites via small widgets and AJAX overlays, complex applications for shared browsing, microblogging, multiprotocol instant messaging allowing messaging across IM networks, and much more.

Because no IM technology standard has been approved by all the major players, IM has long been problematic for libraries—which IM clients to use—but newer IM products can help resolve these dilemmas.

Pidgin (formerly Gaim) and Trillian have been used for library IM reference for some time—both are software programs that connect you to multiple IM networks in one place without the need to install all the necessary individual IM clients. Meebo works on the same premise, but instead of still requiring client software, it uses the web as its platform. Using Meebo, it is possible to log into all of the major IM networks simultaneously, including AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, Jabber, and ICQ.

For librarians: Many librarians not only use Meebo themselves to manage reference questions over multiple IM networks, but they also recommend it to their patrons, thus circumventing patrons' need to download special IM clients to library computers. Many librarians and IT professionals are concerned about potential IM security issues, and Meebo's web interface allows patrons and library staff to use the same IM networks without most of the security concerns.

Meebo introduced its Meebo Me widget in August 2006. With a small snippet of code incorporated into a web page, web sites can offer instant communication with any visitor, regardless of whether that user has an IM account. You can initiate a conversation by typing in the Meebo Me widget text box to talk to the web site owner. Each conversation (up to 100 at a time) is private between the visitor and the web site owner. Meebo Me widget users simply log in to Meebo with their Meebo account name to make themselves available through the widget, and availability is displayed online.

For librarians: Blogging librarians have been quick to adopt the Meebo Me widget for their personal blogs. Libraries are also beginning to use the widget to give patrons an easy way to communicate with library staff—it removes a barrier for those patrons who don't have IM accounts or who don't want to open another program to ask a question.

Anyone who visits the web page with the widget can send a message, so libraries with a lot of web traffic may need to monitor it because it could be a larger target for abuse. A Meebo Me widget may be better suited for subject librarians, blog authors, and specialized web pages.

Messaging widgets come in more forms than simple one-to-one text messaging—new products like Meebo Rooms and Userplane, less fancy multiuser chat solutions like Gabbly and Yaplet, and more traditional IM forms like the Google Talk widget are all making appearances. The newest breed is the multimedia-enriched chat widget, including Meebo Rooms and Userplane Webchat. Meebo Rooms is a new Meebo widget designed for blogs and sites. It is a full-featured chat room that overlays a web site. In addition to text chat, Meebo Rooms is designed to distribute video and media. It can be embedded in web sites in three sizes, including a sidebar version and a media-rich version. Userplane Webchat is similar to Meebo Rooms, though it has even more capabilities, including live voice and video streaming.

For librarians: Chat widgets can create community on any web site, more so than a blog or a social networking tool, simply because they are live and provide synchronous communication. Though perhaps not as useful for asking reference questions as regular instant messaging tools or widgets, chat widgets can be used to brainstorm with coworkers, collaborate on projects with long-distance colleagues, offer library patrons a place to communicate with others, host live chat with authors or about books, and more. Because these chats can be public or private, options for how to use the chat are open.

Meebo Rooms has built-in video advertisements, so, at present, it may not be a palatable option for many libraries. Userplane has a free option with advertisements and a paid option without ads. If video isn't required and sharing media isn't necessary, Gabbly and Yaplet are alternatives to try.

Libraries have also been experimenting with chat bots. The library system for the University of Hamburg, Germany, has a chat bot, Stella, on its web site. Library visitors can type in their questions, and Stella answers. Library staff developed answers for over 3000 questions, so Stella can guide patrons through several scenarios. Testing Stella with a few simple questions like, “Where can I find books?” and “How do I get peer-reviewed articles?” produced excellent results. Harder questions, e.g., “What's the word for peer-review in German?” were obviously less successful.

Ms. Dewey, a Microsoft search engine experiment, is a more famous information bot. Ms. Dewey talks to search users based on their queries or lack of queries. The search engine itself is not remarkable, but the interactivity and personality make it worth checking out.

For librarians: Because chat bots are more interactive than traditional FAQs, help files, and cheat sheets, chat bots like Stella are excellent ways to engage library patrons with the web site, provide research guidance, and make help easier to find. In tandem with other messaging and reference options, chat bots could cut down on confusion and help funnel more challenging questions to reference librarians.

Since its introduction in March 2006, Twitter has been hailed as the next great thing in technology as well as deemed completely pointless. Over the past few months, Twitter's coverage by bloggers, technology experts, and journalists has been steadily increasing. In particular, after the 2007 Computers in Libraries conference, librarians who were originally wary of or saw no purpose to Twitter began thinking more about how useful it could be to their libraries. [See Roy Tennant's “Twitterpated,” on the Link List.]

What is Twitter? At its most fundamental level, Twitter is just a place where people answer the question, “What are you doing?” Every time you answer that question in 140 characters or less via your phone or the web site, it posts to your Twitter account. Posts are publicly viewable on the Twitter time line or can be made viewable just to friends or individuals.

Some have described Twitter as completely intuitive—anyone knows how to use it from the moment of creating an account. Judging by the amount of confusion many tech-savvy individuals face when first trying to use Twitter, though, you may need a quick overview.

First, sign up for a Twitter account. Your name and username will be visible to Twitter users, but you can choose to keep your updates (tweets) private or put them on the public time line. Only approved friends will be able to see tweets for protected or private accounts. Since Twitter works best if you have a group of friends, colleagues, or family on Twitter with you, Twitter gives you the opportunity to invite friends to Twitter via email.

Once you've passed the initial registration stages, you are ready to post. There are three main ways to post to Twitter: with your Twitter web page, IM, and text messaging (mobile phones and other SMS-enabled devices). Using Twitter.com is the most obvious—just enter up to 140 characters into the “What are you doing?” box. Updating via IM and texting are more common methods, though—instructions for setting these accounts up are available on the Twitter web site. Once your IM account is set up, you can post to Twitter by messaging twitter@twitter.com (Jabber/GTalk) or TwitterIM (AIM). By mobile phone, send a text message to 40404. There is a new mobile interface at m.twitter.com if you prefer posting from your phone's online interface.

Finding friends and setting up your Twitter social network is a little more complicated. There is no good way to search for Twitterers, so knowing your friends' Twitter account names is the best way to find them. Alternately, you can browse through the public time line; use a service like Twitterholic.com, a list of top Twitterers; or browse through other people's networks. The difference between friends and followers is like the difference between your network and your fans in del.icio.us: friends are people whose accounts you watch, while followers are people watching you.

People who want to keep updated on your Twitter comings and goings can either follow you on Twitter or can subscribe to your account's RSS feed, which is only available for public accounts. Updates from you or your friends can be sent to IM or mobile phones as well as to the Twitter web page (look for the “With Friends” tab to see your friends' tweets). If your Twitter network is large, getting updates by mobile phone or text message may get spendy, so most Twitterholics prefer IM.

Twitter is still shaking out a few problems—the site has been regularly down for upgrades and server maintenance. Some of the services built on Twitter's API, like RSS2Twitter and Twitterfeed.com, are likewise hit-and-miss. Twitter has skyrocketed in popularity in recent months, although the uptime issues are still being resolved.

For librarians: Though it seems simple, Twitter's possibilities are limitless. Twitter is a microblogging tool, an alerting system, a type of IM, a social network, a status updating tool like IM away messages, a conversation, and more. For librarians, it appears destined to be an essential conference tool as well as a personal productivity tool that can be used for creating to-do lists, tracking bug fixes, brainstorming with colleagues, and generally keeping in touch with friends.

Conferences are a good fit for Twitter—for one, Twittering is much like existing microblogging and other live blog conference coverage. It's an easy way to record conference events and disseminate them online with the Twitter web page or your account's RSS feed.

It's also an easy way to create a conference community. At the March 2007 SxSW conference, the SxSW Twitter account asked, “What are you doing at SxSW?” Over 500 SxSW attendees posted their replies, all of which were displayed live on a large conference screen. Conference attendees have been using Twitter to have side conversations about events, arrange meetups, and get updates about sessions they can't attend.

A few pioneering libraries are already experimenting with Twitter, mainly for a few Twitter applications that send RSS feeds to Twitter. Using RSS2Twitter or Twitterfeed.com, it's possible to import multiple RSS feeds into a Twitter account in a single stream, meaning any library RSS feed (new books, del.icio.us links, events, news, announcements, etc.) can be sent out to library patrons via Twitter. Libraries experimenting with importing RSS feeds into Twitter include the Casa Grande Library System, AZ, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Undergraduate Library, and Ada Community Library, ID.

Other notable library Twitter options include creating reference logs, using Twitter as a microblog (with short, announcement-style posts), and sending event reminders. Because all Twitter accounts have RSS feeds, libraries can roll the latest Twitter announcements on the library web page. If patrons add the library Twitter account to their own Twitter friends list, it may even be possible for them to use Twitter to ask reference questions.

Twitter also can serve as a marketing tool, both for library services and for new books and online library products like newsletters and blogs. One creative Amazon affiliate, TwitterLit, posts the first line of a new book each day with a link to Amazon—imagine the interest libraries could pique with a similar service that linked to catalog records.

Adding TwitThis buttons or links to library web pages or blog posts is another way to increase awareness of library services because library patrons who Twit a page send that link to the members of their Twitter network. No doubt talented and creative librarians will be dreaming up new ways to boost their library's services with Twitter for some time to come.

Tumblr is a microblogging platform and RSS aggregator, sometimes described as a combination of Twitter and WordPress. Not only is it more powerful than Twitter, but it is much simpler for microblogging and aggregating multiple feeds. RSS feeds can be pulled in a number of ways, including just links to content, links plus descriptions (full posts), text, text without titles, or photos. Any RSS feed can be imported, though Tumblr gives nice cues from a number of common sources, including Flickr, del.icio.us, LiveJournal, Vox, YouTube, Blogger, and more. Unlike Twitter, with its 140-character-post limit, Tumblr doesn't restrict post size. It also lets users post photos, chats, videos, and other media instead of text. All Tumblr accounts have RSS feeds, naturally. Tumblr can't compete with Twitter for its social functionality, but it is a social network—you can add friends and track other people's Tumblelogs. For quickly and easily creating a blog and aggregating other content from across the web, however, it is perfect.

Meshly is a combination microblog and social bookmarking tool to which posts are submitted from IM. Users can rate others' posts, giving it a digg-like feel, and can use tags and topic-based channels to organize their posts. Meshly posts are all in the same format, making it less visually interesting than Tumblr but a little more complex than Twitter, as tagging and categorization are a major part of the posting process. All Meshly accounts, channels, and tags have associated RSS feeds.

For librarians: Microblogs are useful for easily posting small snippets of information to the web. Microblogging applications that easily import RSS feeds are extremely useful for aggregating one's web presence.

Instant messaging, chat, microblogs, and combinations of them, whether used for communicating with friends and family or connecting with library users, are simple ways to stay connected and publish content.