Trillian - For all your IM Needs
by Martin Neumann ~ October 5th, 2007
Instant Messanging (IM) is a vital tool for any home-based business owner. It allows you to chat live with anybody from anywhere around the world.
For businesses conducting themselves online, it’s been a boon in getting things done fast. Getting in touch with potential customers, advertisers and other business associates is just a button away.
Sadly, because of all the spam that email gets, IM is quickly overtaking email as a communication tool. For many (and I’m getting to that stage), email is getting very old hat, indeed. Some of the younger generation call it “snail mail”.
I’ve long used Windows Messenger for all my IM needs. But there’s been one problem. Not everyone uses Windows Messenger because their are some great IM clients out there to choose from.
Looking at some of my contacts I have 28 who are on the Windows platform, 21 on Yahoo! Messenger, 9 on ICQ and 5 on AIM.
And that’s when I come across Trillian.
Trillian™ is a fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. It provides capabilities not possible with original network clients, while supporting standard features such as audio chat, file transfers, group chats, chat rooms, buddy icons, multiple simultaneous connections to the same network, server-side contact importing, typing notification, direct connection (AIM), proxy support, encrypted messaging (AIM/ICQ), SMS support, and privacy settings.
Trillian comes in two flavours - the free Basic 3 version and a Pro 3 version ($25). I’ve been trialling the free version for a few weeks now and am extremely happy with it.
It’s not as cluttered as other IM clients and it brings all my contacts into the one app. As Wikipedia explains…
Trillian connects to multiple instant messaging services without the need of running multiple clients. Users can create multiple connections to the same service, and can also group connections under separate identities to prevent confusion. All contacts are gathered under the same contact list. Contacts are not bound to their own IM service groups, and can be dragged and dropped freely.
It’s faster, easy on the eyes and has quickly become my favourite chat program. And I’m preparing to buy the Pro version tot ake it to the next level - even though the Basic free version is just fine for the majortiy of users.
And No, you cynics out there :-) - this is not a sponsored review, but simply someone coming by an app and being so impressed with it because it does as it says it does and does it well.
October 9th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Hi,
I’ve heard about trillian before and a lot of people are saying that it is indeed a great tool for combining different IM platform user.
I never try using it before since I don’t really use IM very often but would love to try it soon.
Another good tool for combining different IM platforms is meebo—>www.meebo.com
February 10th, 2008 at 8:05 am
I’ve never been big on using im’s, only because as a professional it seemed kind of juvenile, but I must say recently I discovered many of my friends we’ll just say they are 30 something, lol, actually use it quite a bit. I had used aim for a little while and I always thought it would be a great idea if someone would combine all the major im players into one, so that is actually a great idea, thanks for the heads up.