MessageCast: Blog-IM Blurrage
Another sighting has been made of the Real-Time Convergence Train. MessageCast, a company that touts itself as "pioneering ways to dramatically improve electronic messaging and broadcast communication while eliminating SPAM", is preparing to released their line of "Update-based" software.
These new products will provide a bridge between online content (most specifically blogging) and real-time media (IM, SMS). As a recent News.com article notes:
This week, Internet marketing services developer MessageCast said it plans to release a test version of an e-mail alert tool aimed at bloggers that taps into Microsoft's MSN Messenger network. The service immediately notifies readers of new postings via instant messenger, e-mail or, on mobile phones, SMS.
"We're giving people an easy on-ramp to the real-time network," said MessageCast CEO Royal Farros. He added that the company is still negotiating with Yahoo and America Online to tap into their systems. "This offers a more effective way to reach readers than e-mail."
For now, it seems that only MSN users will be able to receive these notifications. However, there are some interesting implications/possibilities. One use that seems to spring to mind is an IM-based RSS aggregator/messenger. The notion of sending IM commands to the RSS agent. Ideally, this would be a method for tracking comments on a blog. Currently, there are too few applications that provide comment subscriptions, complicating the matter of following ensuing dialogue. Additionally, responses to the alerts could be coaxed to directly publish responses, much the way IM-Blog gateways work currently.
IM is, in many ways, is more convenient that say E-mail or an RSS Aggregator to configure, not to mention leaps and bounds ahead of most web-based applications. It is this always-on, always-present simplicity that will drive development and convergence in this direction.