Week 9: Instant Messaging

I've been using facebook chat for a couple years now and I really love it. We even use it here at work to communicate with other branches. Initially, we were looking for a good IM site that didn't use your e-mail (since our e-mails all have personal info and we trade computers, leaving our accounts open all the time wasn't well received). We discovered facebook and it worked great. The only problem...if the window isn't opened you can barely hear if you have a message. Today, I tried "meebo" and I could definitely hear it. I was also able to import my facebook contacts, saving myself a step since I already have my co-workers on facebook. For extra credit, we had the option of using freenode/IRC to talk with several of the librarians on there. I logged in today and was able to talk with a few, especially Heather Braum. I liked the simplicity of it, though when multiple conversations are going it was difficult to know if I was being asked a question or someone else. I did like it though :) Interesting. Only problem is that, again, I couldn't tell when there was a new message unless I had the window open. I'm a big fan of multi-tasking, so that was the only real drawback for me.

And the winner is......Meebo!! I talked to my boss and I'm going to try to get us all here at Burlington to use it. Occasionally we have a weird patron issue or if there is ever a threat/emergency, it would be nice to be able to "silently" alert the other staff without drawing attention to oneself. Also nice for if you just have a quick question for someone in another room. I hope we can use this at our branch