Trillian Going after Meebo

Posted on March 11, 2007 One Comment

I first saw this over at CyberNet yesterday. Frankly, since I first saw the video it has been stuck in my mind. I’m infatuated.

The Cerulean Studios folks, probably best known for Trillian the all-in-one Instant Messaging client, are showing off a very incredible web based IM client — not unlike what Meebo has. But perhaps… just perhaps… better.

To me, the web based IM clients just can’t be beat. You can get to IM anywhere you have a browser. If you use logging, it is centralized. No need to install and configure local applications.

The downside to web based IM is that if you close your browser, you closed your IM. I like to run Meebo in “popped out” mode and sometimes that little caveat catches me, usually right after I closed the browser and blindly clicked the various warning popups. (yeah, like you read every message when you assume you know what they say!)

Based on what is being shown off in this video, that little downside could go away. That would be incredible.

Check this blog post from Cerulean Studios. In particular:

Some technical information:

[...]

This technology, like Trillian Astra Web before it, requires Flash 9.

This is the real deal - with it, we can access the system tray, task bar, the local filesystem, dock the contact list, etc. The goal of this project is to emulate 99% of common Trillian functionality in something incredibly lightweight and easy to grab on-the-go. While we won’t likely be doing anything incredibly advanced here (that’s what Trillian “regular” is for), we will strive to do enough to make it worth your while.

[...]

Learn more about Trillian Astra at this entry page. Truly fascinating, I can’t wait to see more!

(but will it keep logs centralized?)

Tags: alpha, im, meebo, trillian, web2.0