In fact, this could actually be a very good marketing scheme. Let’s say person A uses Google Talk, and person B uses AIM. Persons A and B would both be very excited and happy when they found out that their two clients would be cross-compatible. After a while, though, they would both become thoroughly annoyed because they could not, say, share files. Then, they would have to decide on which client to both use in order to have that compatibility, and would then decide based on the clients’ merits. Whichever client they chose would then have one more member. And, since it would be easy for them to switch over to the other client if that other client suddenly became so much better, it would then be possible for one client to grab the majority of users after a major release. The client’s popularity would then slowly decrease over time as other clients released their new versions, but would spike again as the client released its next version. Theoretically, if none of the clients were ever released around the same time, all companies involved could make a lot more money. Something to think about.

If only they finally made [tech.cybernetnews.com]

I wonder when these companies will realize that inter-op will benefit everyone. AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the other should stop see the other guys as competition and o fined a way the leverage each other to their own benefit.

Let’s face it, most of us have a preference on messenger clients are not going to switch just because a friend of our uses a different one.