Application Watch - Kool, a Meebo IM Competitor

Dietrich Kappe, Sunday, July 23, 2006 @ 9:00 am

Via TechCrunch, it's getting crowded in some of these AJAX application categories. For a while, Meebo was the sole player in the AJAX IM arena, with only local chat apps playing at its ankles. No longer. A new competitor is entering the fray: Kool IM. While I was napping, a number of others have also crept up on Meebo:

In addition to Silicon Valley based Meebo and Amsterdam based eBuddy, ILoveIM, Germany based Mabber and other competitors are out there vying for the same user base. Luckily, users tend to rack up a lot of time (if not page views) with the service, allowing the companies to generate reasonable revenue from advertising - eBuddy claims to be profitable.

"Too early is the same as wrong," as the old Venture Capital maxim goes. I guess all these competitors are validating Meebo's business model, just as they're getting ready to eat it's lunch.

agile ajax

Comments: 6 so far

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1. 

   I tried kooim, very nice~!

   Comment by steve, Thursday, July 27, 2006 @ 7:12 pm

2. 

   works really well here also.

   Comment by adam, Friday, July 28, 2006 @ 11:05 am

3. 

   KoolIM is the only one we could make work as a standalone application, and I’m really impressed with in. We have a framework that allows you to create desktop applications out of web apps (called Sidewinder), and I hope you don’t mind if I provide a link to an entry on my blog where I show how we used Sidewinder to wrap KoolIM:

   http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/2006/08/making-desktop-chat-client-from.html

   All the best,

   Mark

   Mark Birbeck
   CEO
   x-port

   Comment by Mark Birbeck, Monday, August 7, 2006 @ 9:07 pm

4. 

   nice sidebar stuff, works really well with koolim!

   Comment by Steve Argus, Friday, August 11, 2006 @ 9:54 am

5. 

   i use to use meebo until it got blocked at work, i now use koolim.

   Comment by Jen, Tuesday, August 15, 2006 @ 9:32 am

6. 

   wow, i love koolim.

   Comment by Amit, Thursday, August 24, 2006 @ 9:59 am

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