Meebo me!

We've been talking at work lately about using IM (instant messaging) as a customer service (reference) tool. We already use email and phone and there's been lots of talk in the library world lately about the need for libraries to connect with their customer through communication channels that their customers are using anyway. For a university library like mine, that means IM, text messaging, etc.

Anyhow, what with all the talk about IM'ing, even though I'm not part of the project at work, I've been playing around with IM'ing again. Since I've got a Google account, I started with their IM product that's called Gtalk (of course). But that only lets me talk to other people with Google accounts. So I created a Meebo account for myself. Meebo is an IM service that brings a lot of different IM services (like AIM, Yahoo!, ICQ, Gtalk) together and lets people communicate across services. For instance, in theory, I can now chat with my brother who has AIM even though I only have Gtalk (haven't actually tried this yet).

Another thing that Meebo does is let you embed a link in a blog that readers can use to start a conversation with the author of the blog. This is my experimental link so go ahead, Meebo me!