Solo Technology

I think Peter nailed it in his comment: Meebo rooms just aren’t doing much for me beyond a feeling of clutter.

They’re not doing much for my old P2 laptop that I use for IM and light browsing either! That poor little CPU seems to be working harder.

From a technology perspective, I guess they’re interesting — I mean, how much javascript can you wedge into a page?!? But I guess I’m not a target demographic: Adding videos and pictures to a chat room just doesn’t excite me.

And as long as “so-and-so has entered the room” and “so-and-so has left the room” are interspersed throughout everything, I’m even less inclined to explore. Surely we could have an option to suppress those? At least you can mute someone (right-click on their name in the room list). That might make some rooms more tolerable.

Am I missing the point, or am I just being an old curmudgeon?

6 Responses to “Meebo Rooms on an Old Machine”

1. Micah on May 16th, 2007 10:07 pm
   

   I think you’re being a curmudgeon, but that’s OK, somebody’s got to represent the curmudgeon contingent.

   There’s always http://classic.meebo.com/ .

2. Tom Howard on May 16th, 2007 10:58 pm
   

   I agree with you about the whole video and picture thing. I don’t really see myself using that feature. What I do thing is great, is how easy it was to embed a room within the sidebar or my website. I run a tech blog with a few software releases, so it’s nice to have an easy way for readers of my blog to contact me and ask questions.

3. Saskia on May 17th, 2007 3:45 am
   

   I agree, after trying it out myself… I don’t see any real increased user experience.

   There just so many other websites out there that provide a more cool and fun experience.

   Its a nice attempt… but honestly rather a cheesy app that lacks significance and reason.

4. Rich G. on May 17th, 2007 6:04 am
   

   What happened to your feed? I haven’t seen a post since May 8th show up in google reader. Did your feed address change without any notice?

   I was using http://www…/blogx feed, re-subbing with feedburner.

5. Chris on May 17th, 2007 7:50 am
   

   @Micah - thanks for the link. I’d been using Meebo full-time (daily, all day) since last summer and I’d never heard of the classic option!

6. Chris on May 17th, 2007 7:53 am
   

   @Tom - in a similar fashion, I’ve been using the meebo me widget on my contact page. Very handy, as long as I’m running Meebo at the time.

   @Saskia - thanks for the thoughts. I’m not sure I’d call it cheesy, but it sure isn’t grabbing me.

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