Evolving IM

While the majority of the world searches for the next killer application it might be staring us in the face all along. Instant Messaging is becoming so popular as a preferred means of communication that we may soon see voice as merely an option; taking a back seat to interactive text-messaging systems. Social networking sites, contact centers, and even the next generation of desktop software offer chatting and IM capabilities. It could even be argued that the basic feature set for IM is well defined. But what’s in store for the next generation of IM?

Often we communicate using the tools we are given at that moment with little consideration of how it might be improved. Such is the case with IM. To many it is approaching perfection but in reality as communications evolve there will be convergence across all these messaging platforms including email, SMS and voice systems.

With the introduction of corporate email employees became more productive; able to manage their own time more effectively. This resulted in a decrease in the number of voice transactions per day. Today many users receive 10s and even 100s of emails everyday bloating their inbox and pushing them back into a less productive state. Instant Messaging is introducing a similar pattern. Full adopters are using IM as their primary means of communication; not only as a replacement for voice communications but also as an alternative to a cumbersome email environment.

So what is driving the adoption of IM systems? Primarily ease of use and the ability to interact with others in real-time while still being able to manage one’s own time. The rate of adoption has definitely indicated that IM is a preferred communication method over voice and email for the majority of transactions however email-like functionality and voice will still exist. In fact most vendors are working towards a messaging environment that allows all of these systems to interwork seamlessly. The foundation of which is based on IM platforms.

IM could easily introduce new capabilities that would further accelerate adoption. One of the most prominent is federation and public IM. Basically this introduces the ability for corporate IM systems to interact with each other and with public IM systems. For example Yahoo users can add MSN users in their friends list.

What shape will IM take in the future? There are a number of features that come to mind that could greatly enhance IM’s usability:

1) Secure IM

The ability to create a secure communication channel between clients to prevent eavesdropping and secure file transfers

2) Interoperability with Web-Based Messaging

This includes the ability to support both a web and OS based client as well as having those clients able to communicate with IM agents built into websites (i.e. social networking)

3) Conversation Markers

IM conversations are stored as a continuous stream of chatting making searches difficult. The ability to manually or automatically set markers based on keywords would allow more convenient indexing

4) Improved File Transfers

Most IM systems today allow file sharing but this is hardly robust or secure. Improved file sharing capabilities would greatly increase usability.

5) Embedded P2P Agent

In addition to having a web-search capability a Peer-to-Peer sharing agent might be an ideal companion for joint file sharing and searching

6) Scratch Pad

Ability to add notes throughout a conversation that are visible only to that user and are stored as part of the communication stream

7) Offline IM

This exists today with limited capability and is the area that would create the cleanest bridge between email and IM. Essentially the ability to send IMs to any user present or not and have these presented to the receiving party in a more consolidated form (i.e. light-weight email front-end)

8) Any-to-Any Messaging

This is the ability for any device to send using any system (i.e. SMS, IM, email, voice) to any other system. In other words an email user can send an email to another user's IM, or to their mobile phone in an SMS format

9) Centralized Messaging Management

This is the consolidation of all user logins for all messaging systems including email, multiple IM accounts, social networking accounts, webmail, etc into a single client front end (web or OS based)

This is by no means a complete list however it is a clear indication that IM has some work to do. More interesting will be how the front-end of the IM system evolves. Today it is optimized for the limited feature set IM offers however once these messaging systems converge it will become apparent that the front-end will need better indexing, easier group communications (i.e. bcc and cc in the email world), the ability to accept non-solicited communications, etc. In addition with a fully embedded search engine that seamlessly integrates the local file system with the network we start to see a new desktop emerge.

We’ve come a long way from the days of having isolated computers scattered about the globe to one with a plethora of networked devices and communication systems. The power of these devices is their ability to communicate and share information. Bringing this all together is the next-generation of IM to the point that we can drop the I and more openly call this Messaging. With the right convergence of technologies IM will emerge as the fundamental component of the desktop and will cement its position as the king of communication.