Too many messaging clients on my desktop


There is:

  • e-mail (Mail.app)
  • VoIP (Skype)
  • RSS (NetNewsWire, and Mail.app)
  • Twitter (Tweetie)
  • sometimes IM (iChat, others)
  • sometimes IRC (Colloquy)

That’s in addition to websites that also act as messaging clients, like Facebook,

I’m sorry, how many feeds am I supposed to monitor in how many pieces of software?

What about somebody develop a real nice piece of software that brings all of them (and whatever they invent next week) into a user experience that actually makes sense? An Ãœber-multiprotocol messaging client that does all of this?

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2 responses to “Too many messaging clients on my desktop”

  1. I agree with you this is a problem.
    My cell phone which is a blackberry solves some of this problem
    I receive 5 email accounts, sms, twitters, and 4 im accounts on my blackberry all in my inbox.
    That solves a lot of what you are asking for. No irc or jabber but progress not perfection.

  2. XMPP and Jabber can be considered an attempt in this direction. But I guess you are looking for something better, which I agree is still missing. Shouldn’t user-centric identity play a role in unifying all those messaging systems? I certainly don’t want to have to log into each messaging system individually. Even setting up login info for each account once may be viewed as a hassle to many people, me included.