I’m no social butterfly – anyone who knows me can vouch for that. However, I’m in the Internet business, for better or worse, and I have to stay reasonably up to date with the current “killer apps”.
Lately I mentioned that I’m using Digsby for AIM and Twitter. I’ve been a Pidgin fan for a long time, but I think the Digsby Twitter plugin is much cooler and smoother than the Pidgin alternatives. Twitter being the hot topic it is right now, I want to try and stick with it and use it, so having it handy on my Digsby list is helpful.
As for basic use, Pidgin and Digsby are pretty much interchangeable to me. The differences right now are that Digsby has the best Twitter plugin, whereas Pidgin has better Jabber support, including group chat. So, I’m still using both. If either one were to add that final piece they are missing, I’d probably standardize with them.
Since I’m using Digsby and making a half-hearted attempt at Facebook, I figured I’d try their Facebook plugin. I’m not sure yet what I think of this one. The Twitter pluging is simple – add Tweets, list the most recent Tweets from the people you follow. Easy, probably because the whole idea is so basic in the first place that it lends itself well to being an add-on or plug-in.
Facebook, on the other hand, has more going on, so there’s more to try and get into the plugin. For the most part, it shows you your “wall”, any alerts, and the “news feed”, which I guess is all your friends’ walls. If you authorize it enough times, you can update your “wall” directly from Digsby through a pop-up window, rather than having to open a browser. Other than that, there are direct links to various parts of Facebook that launch your web browser.
I don’t know, the whole thing might start becoming more useful as I start adding friends to Facebook – we’ll see. For now it’s just another place to send mini-blog messages to. I’m already running two blog sites, helping my wife with hers, trying to Tweet once in awhile, and now I have another place that begs for content. Blood from a turnip, blood from a turnip.
