Post | mennovanslooten.nl/blog

As some of you may know, last February I left my job at Backbase to join the eBuddy team. Since then, I've been working with them to create their new online instant messaging (IM) client. Four months later and with great joy (and a little nervousness) we have now announced the first public beta of this multi-network client.

Multiple network and account support

Many people who I first introduce to this feature ask me a very simple question: "Why would someone need to log in with more than one account or network?" To answer them I usually remind them of when email first started taking off. One email account was enough for only a very short time. It didn't take long for people to realize its quite handy to separate personal and private email with different addresses, for example.

Now imagine that same situation but remember it is not possible to send messages from one network to another. My MSN account is useless if I want to communicate with my AIM or Yahoo-using American friends. This drives many people to generate different accounts with different networks.

Many desktop IM clients (like Gaim/Pidgin and Miranda) have already supported logging in with multiple accounts for a long time. With IM becoming more and more predominant as a means of online communication supporting multiple accounts became the most wanted feature for the new eBuddy client.