AOL Aims To Cash In On Instant Messenger Success
from the but-does-anyone-want-this? dept
This isn't the first time I've been confused by the massive rush by companies to hype up their "corporate" instant messaging services, but I'm still confused as to what the real advantage is for business buying such a product. The Washington Post focuses in on why AOL is desperate to make money off of instant messaging, but that misses the point. Of course they want to make money off of instant messaging - but that doesn't answer the question of what value will businesses really get out of instant messaging. Right now, about the only thing they can offer is the ability for companies to spy on (and record) what their employees are saying over IM. That's not a particularly compelling reason to buy - unless you want paranoid employees. Furthermore, when employees know their bosses are spying on them, it also will kill most of the advantage (informal messaging) of IM. It's nice that AOL wants to make money off of IM, but maybe they should focus on where the real value is, instead of taking blind stabs at ways to extract cash. Update: David Coursey also has a good article weighing in on why corporate IM is bad. Most instant messaging programs already are corporate instant messaging. Making the programs set up for "official" corporate communications will only hurt the technology.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
National Firewalls
[ link to this | view in chronology ]