An instant messenger program with file sharing features. Click to see more photos
I was trying out the imeem beta for Mac for the first time today and ended up spending the last few hours hopelessly addicted. Within a few clicks, you’ll start to see why this new app has to potential to be life-changing. Just think of it as IM + friendster + flickr + fileSharing + blogging!
Imeem was founded in December 2003, and is a cross between instant messaging and networking sites like MySpace and Friendster. While it’s essentially an instant messenger, it has features similar to friendster (social networking), flickr (photo sharing/tagging), Google Groups (interest groups), blogging, and file sharing all in one. Words cannot describe this enough and even though the Mac version is still in beta, it has a very polished working interface. Since it has been out for Windows for a while, there are plenty of interesting users already populating the service (searchable via profiles).
iMeem’s file sharing feature was what first peaked my interest into this application, since it goes beyond other instant messengers by allowing persistent sharing of files when someone clicks on your profile (don’t worry, you can set privacy levels). From the about page, imeem’s official features include:
• Sharing your media (e.g. recommend new music, films and video to friends)
• Store and share photos
• Send instant messages
• Create and share blogs
• Find new friends and form public and private groups (called “meems!”)
My personal thoughts on imeem:
If you look at the big picture, imeem is really taking you back to the AOL days by attempting to replace our web browser with an enclosed interactive environment. If I you want me to be critical, it’s essentially doing nothing new, except to create a space that integrates all our favourite types of services together. Though I do feel that it does steal from others conceptually, I must add that it does extremely well in terms of overall integration with the Mac OS (e.g. photo sharing iPhoto albums).
Since it is a Mac beta, we still aren’t able to add our AIM®, Yahoo®, MSN®, and GoogleTalk accounts like our Windows counterparts. Still, there are lots of other features to keep anyone exploring. If you’re interested, take the tour or download it now, then link to me at imeem: brainopera or join my meem: Singapore
UPDATE: Red Herring covered the iMeem launch party.
