06.30.2007 - WIMZI
This past week saw the release of AIM's newest product, WIMZI, a project I've been working on for the last few months.
From the website:
Get an AIM WIMZI widget for your blog, social networking pages or any other website! By adding an AIM WIMZI widget to your site you'll allow anyone at your website to chat with you when you're online with AIM, while keeping your AIM Name private. Build your own widget today!
Essentially what this does is sign any visitor to your site into the AIM network anonymously with a randomly generated id, like aimguest369131. If you are using the latest AIM client, they will appear in a group in your buddy list with the same name as the widget - so if you've named your widget "Talk at me", you'll now have a group with that same name in which visitors to your web site will appear. If you use an alternative client like Adium, the communication bit will work but the group won't show up. The widget comes in both Javascript/HTML and Flash flavors with several canned themes.
Now here is the cool part: the widget was written using the WIM API and is therefore open for you to do what you want with it. Consider for a moment what might be possible with an authentication-free means of pushing data through a network that you don't have to build or support. Your users don't need an AIM account, and they don't even need to know that they've been signed into the AIM network. As far as they know, you've just got some nifty way of pushing data down to them in real time. Lots of possiblities there, especially when combined with a bots.
For those interested in the code, the javascript source can be seen here.
(and look, a post that has doesn't have a single drawing in it!)
Posted by Andrew Wooldridge on July 16, 2007 @ 3:21 am
Posted by Steve on July 21, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
My contact info is on the web page
Posted by Steve Shorr Insurance on October 1, 2007 @ 2:20 am
Comments have been closed for this post.