It is becoming quite apparent that smart phones are the wave of the future – at least smart-er phones that is. Portable messaging has almost taken the place of voice chatting for many young folks. Almost every messaging program now has a portable version – Brosix Enterprise Messaging is no exception!

Check out Brosix.com for more.

The great thing about Brosix is that it offers excellent security options, collaborative features, and the like. Check it out and see if you prefer Brosix Portable Messaging to portable versions of gChat, AIM, and others.

Brosix Free Trial

Brosix also offers a free trial if you go to Brosix.com which is priceless for businesses. One of the reasons I would suggest using out the Brosix free trial for your business is that it can help test out the client for your older folks who sometimes oppose new technology more than they should.

With my parents, for example, they opposed email for years. Then last year my Mother had me set her up with an email account now we email daily, it has brought us closer together. I imagine many older folks who might resist enterprise messaging would change their tunes if they tried it out!

Wired probably put it best when they said, “Developed by AteBits, Tweetie’s interface is so clean you would think it came straight out of Apple headquarters.”

I highly recommend checking it out.

One of the questions that I have for Twitter is when they are going to take a page from the third party developers and improve upon the UI themselves. Their are a number of changes that they could make which would make the learning curve less stout for new users. My great fear is that they’ll rely on their explosive growth to the detriment of the service – ie: they’ll let the experience stagnate because users are joining.

Having done work for Brosix I know that people want a clean looking UI. Thankfully the Brosix Enterprise Messaging team is hard at work on future editions that will not only work better, but they’ll look better too!

Apple and Twitter joining together would be the stuff of online fan boys dreams. The two companies that internet/computer geeks love the most joined together? The stuff of their dreams.

The question is why would Apple purchase Twitter?

Twitter offers buzz, sure, but Apple always has buzz. It could be that they want to purchase Twitter to generate a little renewed hype in case of Steve Jobs stepping down permanently – but that seems a little far fetched, especially since Twitter would allegedly cost Apple $750,00,000.

Twitter does not offer revenue to Apple although it does offer a large and growing user base.

The question is how will Twitter find revenue? It won’t be in the enterprise field, at least not in terms of enterprise internal communications. Rumored sources of revenue are sentiment engines – aka a complex search offered by Twitter to companies to see who is saying what – and sponsored corporate accounts.

Enterprise communications are often slow to make the leap after all. Email has made the transition but instant messaging still lags behind even though enterprise messaging services such as Brosix offer encryption, collaborative tools, and the like. It will be interesting to see how Twitter unfolds.

In 1960 when you showed up at a new office for your first day of work you would probably get a typewriter or a Secretary with a typewriter, notepads and pens, and perhaps a telephone.

In 1995 you might have received a computer, in 2000 you almost certainly would have. You would probably received an extension number or direct line for your phone and an email address by 2000.

It is now 2009 and we haven’t gone far beyond that.

In an age when nearly everyone is using instant messaging at home – why hasn’t it become more popular in the workplace?

Some people view it as a time waster, some IT departments do not want to set up another server or add an Instant Messaging client to their server, other companies view it as too expensive or do not see the need.

I personally believe that their thinking is wrong. Brosix Enterprise Messaging allows you to control your network, they host the server for their clients, and it is very cost effective. Check out the Brosix Blog and Brosix website for more.

It is high past time that new employees begin receiving IM screen names as well!

I tried out Aardvark for a while today and it is a cool service – it will become even more useful if my friends join, which is kind of the point, but the other cool feature of Aardvark is that they farm out the questions to other users as well.

Aardvark represents one of the reasons that Brosix Enterprise Messaging is something that I recommend to my friends and colleagues. I use Brosix regularly because it offers real time features and capabilities that email doesn’t offer and it one-up’s telephones because it offers a number of features including multi-tasking (ie-talking to more than one person), screen sharing, whiteboard, etc.

Check out http://www.brosix.com and also keep an eye on Aardvark when it goes public!

You can have spam filters and such set up on an email address but you can not necessarily control who emails you. Email lists are often sold, despite what anyone might say about “not selling the list”. Further unless you are a better person than I and can avoid responding to emails you can not control who emails you when.

In social networks you can typically choose who friends you and who doesn’t – but with services like Twitter you can’t pick who follows you and who doesn’t unless you private your account which often leads to few following you at all.

The great advantage to having your own instant messaging network – from a service such as Brosix (check out http://www.brosix.com for more information on the service) – is that you can pick and choose who is on your network and therefore pick and choose who can contact you.

That is why I recommend products like Brosix to businesses!

• Facebook Chat is buggy. It was and remains buggy often times.
• It is in browser only – you can’t close out your browser window and continue the chat – plus it is contained in one tab alone so you can’t just look around the internet and chat at the same time.
• Anyone can contact you at any time – if your network is large that can pose a productivity problem.

A few Instant Messenger clients such as Meebo and Adium are offering ports of Facebook Chat but those remain way too inconsistent as in some cases Facebook doesn’t sanction them and can shut off access with a tinkering in the code.

GChat is also a great in browser Instant Messenger but it has similar in browser limitations – and tab limitations! People also have to have a gmail address to use it which can pose a problem as well.

Both are great clients but neither offer the sort of features that businesses need, not to mention that blocking access to gmail and Facebook can help secure your business networks from viruses – AND – help save you from productivity draining websites.

That is why Brosix Enterprise Messaging continues to be the only client that I use at work. The network is secure, the network is self-hosted, and Brosix offers businesses a chance to choose the networks that they wish their users to belong to.

Check it out at http://www.brosix.com!

eBay stated that they believe Skype will generate $1 billion dollars in revenue or more in 2011. They are looking for revenue growth primarily in subscription dollars and additions in terms of SMS texting, call forwarding, etc. Apparently they anticipate some enterprise growth but it remains to be seen if they will generate growth there.

One of the big question marks that remains is a pending lawsuit between the Skype founders and eBay. They are arguing over some proprietary technology that the Skype founders retain ownership of through a company they own called Joltd. This is a huge issue going forward and one that has not generated a significant amount of press despite the danger that it poses to a Skype IPO and Skype’s business as they attempt to be an ongoing concern.

As I wrote before the biggest problem for Skype in terms of enterprise messaging is they still have issues with encryption and security – as well as control of the network. That is why Brosix Enterprise Messaging is the best for business, even as I love Skype. Check it out over at http://www.brosix.com.

It has become increasingly clear that a large portion of their monetization plans lie in search, partnerships such as ExecTweets and Skittles.com, plus the possibility of enterprise accounts in terms of providing “sentiment engines” and officially branded Twitter pages.

Enterprise communication does not appear to be in the plans for Twitter, but a number of start ups including Yammer.

Events like these drive home the point that security is of paramount importance in our online life – and of paramount importance in our enterprise life. This should also drive home the point that we absolutely have to be careful when trusting any and all business communications to free services – whether they are GMail-type services, Twitter, or AOL IM.

That is why I always recommend using Brosix Enterprise Messaging for companies that want to seize the moment in Instant Messaging but wish to insure absolute security. You control your network in Brosix so you will not be attacked by spammers or worms unless one of your employees goes rogue.

Perhaps the most interesting feature is that FriendFeed is literally real time. In other words unlike Facebook and Twitter where you have to hit refresh – on FriendFeed you only have to sit there and wait for the posts and information to flow by. It really heralds the future of social networking on the web in my eyes, although it remains to be seen if non-techies buy into that idea any time soon and if they can keep up with the flow of information. It can be somewhat overwhelming.

Regardless, FriendFeed’s beta which is available at FriendFeed Beta is something you need to check out!

My main question is how are they going to make money? They haven’t said and I am not sure that enterprise features like companies such as Yammer could ever work for the real time web. After all enterprise instant messaging is already the real time web, especially if you use powerful tools such as Brosix Enterprise Messaging which according to many categories in the About.com is the best IM client for business clients everywhere.

In other words FriendFeed needs to look more at measuring consumer sentiment in the real time and data mining that for companies rather than enterprise options.