messages

We've told you about Callwave already, but now we've had the opportunity to put the company's Vtxt application through its paces. Vtxt takes spoken voice mail messages and converts them into text. When someone calls and leaves you a voice mail, Vtxt will send you a text message and an e-mail with a transcript. You don't get the message word-for-word; rather, Vtxt gives you the gist of the message so you can understand what the person said.

The result is a useful and user-friendly service. Both the text message and e-mail arrive within seconds, so you … Read more

Facebook, according to a post on the company blog, has added new functionality to its internal messaging service that allows you to share select content and send messages to e-mail addresses rather than just other Facebook accounts. This means, effectively, that Facebook junkies can do all of their e-mailing through the social network's interface without needing to open up their e-mail accounts at all.

The person with the e-mail address in question will then be able to read the message and respond without needing to sign up for a Facebook account. Members can also use the enhanced messaging to … Read more

This morning Meebo is releasing a freshly updated version of their chat app for the iPhone. The new iteration is more finger-friendly, requiring none of that pinching nor chat window management of the previous version--which was admittedly a quick fix to accommodate early adopters of Apple's handset. Gone is the classic desktop feel of Meebo, which has been replaced by a simple buddy list that takes up the entire screen, and can be perused with one finger. To begin a chat, simply click on somebody's name. It's very intuitive.

With this latest version, Meebo has done something really cool by pulling up the last few lines of your last conversation, assuming you were using Meebo as your client. Likewise, your saved Meebo away messages are there, along with a spiffy new status changer that lets you choose them from a wheel.

All in all, the update is a nice addition to the lineup of IM apps for the iPhone. I'm still partial to Mundu's offerings, which I believe to be the best of the bunch, but already we've come a long way in a short time towards removing the need for client-side IM apps.

More shots of the new interface after the jump.… Read more

You may have heard about Skype, but did you know that little old Windows Live Messenger can make phone calls? Molly Wood shows you how to make voice and webcam calls using the popular IM software.

Met Vivee yet? If you're one of those folks who types text messages while barreling down the highway, you might want to. She's an animated avatar who appears on the screen of your mobile device and reads your incoming e-mail and text messages to you. That way you can keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road--unless of course, you can't keep your eyes off cute little Vivee, in which case you're really screwed.

The new online service from USTelematics connects to the Internet through the Verizon Wireless EV-DO high-speed network, so … Read more

Amid the growing group of instant-messaging solutions for the IM-less iPhone, Mundu (a Webware 100 winner) has just released a new contender that handles four of the most popular chatting protocols with a fantastic interface. If you're an iPhone user, just navigate your Safari browser to http://iphone.mundu.com, which takes you to a log-in screen with access to your AIM, Yahoo, MSN, .Mac, and Google Talk accounts. You can log into all of them simultaneously, although there's no master password system like you get with Meebo.

Each client gets its own buddy list, and any additional … Read more

Given all the great consumer-facing open-source software available, I figured that I'd try to evaluate and write reviews on those I use most often. Open source long ago stopped being about developers for other developers. Here's proof.

Adium is quite simply the best instant-messaging (IM) client available. Period. It has its flaws and is, in some ways, deficient compared to iChat, Apple's own IM client. But its strengths vastly outnumber its weaknesses. I've been using it for years. In some ways, it's very similar to Trillian on the Windows platform in that it allows you to combine nearly all of your IM services (Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Jabber, etc.) into one client.

But Adium actually goes further and provides more.… Read more

Who needs downloads? Not instant-messaging fans, apparently, according to Nielsen NetRatings. The online division of the legendary statistics-crunching company just released a study that tracks the fastest-growing instant-messaging software products from August 2006 to June 2007, and the results indicate that Web-based is the way to go.

The most rapidly growing IM client, according to the study, is Meebo, which launched just over a year ago. The fact that it's so new may be partially responsible for its rapid growth--354 percent from August 2006 to June 2007. But Meebo also packs a double punch: not only is it Web-based … Read more

A city bus driver in Poland has been fired for sending $34,000 in text messages from his company cell phone.

Leszek Wojcik ran up the bill by by sending more than 38,000 SMS messages, about 1,200 a day, in an effort to win a contest, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The Slupsk city bus driver told a local radio station that he hoped to win the contest so he could buy a second car.

The cell phone was only supposed to have a $5 limit, a spokesman for the Slupsk city transportation agency told … Read more