The fall... and rise and rise and rise of chat networks

From CompuServe to Telegram, chat has come a long way—and it's just getting started.

Read the whole story

 

[foxyshadis]

scottwsx96[/url]":1mtzq6pt]

rpdillon[/url]":1mtzq6pt]I'm very surprised to see no mention of Signal, especially with the focus on Telegram towards the end of the article. Open Whisper Systems is extremely good, and my experience with Signal has been excellent.

I've noticed that Ars consistently glosses over Telegram and frequently cites it as a secure messaging application when it has been shown to not be that and other, vetted secure messaging apps already exist, e.g. Signal and Threema.

For better or worse, Telegram is actually popular and widely used, and thus belongs in an article like this. Neither of the others are.

 

[Jamie4443]

mrseb[/url]":hg9y6mku]

sqrt(-1)[/url]":hg9y6mku]I usually let harmless hyperbole pass without comment, because it adds entertainment to the piece but

Like most technologies, multi-user digital chat started life in an American university

Most technologies. Really?

How about flint axes, fire, writing (and paper), the plough, steam engines, electricity, computers ... ?

Ah, I thought about clarifying that. I think he's referring to modern/high technologies. Or maybe he's just being sarcastic. Who can tell...

But computers, and to some extent electricity and steam engines, were (further) developed at universities.

 

[digitalrao]

the Ars Author from UK didn't do much investigation into Paltalk messsenger which is on all the platforms took over when Yahoo chat went down & ICQchatrooms shutdown ..my personal favorites are Spinchat.com/spin.de and Wireclub.com but IRC networks are here to stay ..since AOL chatrooms are only on AOL desktop not AIM or AOL.com anymore . I like using LINE bought MixRadio from Microsoft ...KIK messenger is neat , Viber is cool as desktop webversion like WhatsApp by Facebook

 

[sqrt(-1)]

Jamie4443[/url]":36bci6o6]

mrseb[/url]":36bci6o6]

sqrt(-1)[/url]":36bci6o6]I usually let harmless hyperbole pass without comment, because it adds entertainment to the piece but

Like most technologies, multi-user digital chat started life in an American university

Most technologies. Really?

How about flint axes, fire, writing (and paper), the plough, steam engines, electricity, computers ... ?

Ah, I thought about clarifying that. I think he's referring to modern/high technologies. Or maybe he's just being sarcastic. Who can tell...

But computers, and to some extent electricity and steam engines, were (further) developed at universities.

No argument here from me: I completely agree. I'd also add that they have had a major (and beneficial) influence on improving things. But developing things further, or providing major improvements, is not the same as inventing the thing in the first place.

 

[Baltham]

I miss ICQ. Shame what AOL did to it. And I too still remember my number for it. Lots of fun organizing Action Quake 2 server takeovers with my friends using it...

 

[dollarone]

vanburen already mentioned this, but https://matrix.org does offer a public chat room like IRC with guest access. You can register a user if you want user history etc but it's not required. Check out a client like https://vector.im

 

[SynthiaVice]

"As of September 2105 there are now more than 570 million people on WeChat’s network, and the average user reads the equivalent of a novel every month."

Huh, WeChat exists 100 years from now, apparently.

 

[Deleted member 192806]

SynthiaVice[/url]":2zsfyn3f]"As of September 2105 there are now more than 570 million people on WeChat’s network, and the average user reads the equivalent of a novel every month."

Huh, WeChat exists 100 years from now, apparently.

If Taco Bell can exist in 2032 then so can WeChat?

 

[phoenix_rizzen]

goretsky[/url]":2st2u7hl]Hello,

While it may have only occupied a blip in time (December, 1994 to January, 2001) I am a bit saddened to see that Tribal Voice's PowWow was not mentioned at all.

The company was founded by John McAfee after he left McAfee Associates, and at its height, had around 16M users. It invented many of the features commonly used in chat programs today, such as using the email addresses for its login address, hosted and direct connections, user profiles with pictures and descriptions, private and public community chat rooms, text to speech synthesizer, VoIP, shared .WAV file playing and web cruising, shared whiteboard, games and many other features. It was also compatible with AIM and MSN Messenger.

Sadly, being a technical success doesn't necessarily mean being a financial one, and the company and its chat program are long gone. A Wikipedia page, PowWow (chat program) and a page hosted by a former employee explain a little more about the program in more detail, but that's all that's left in the fifteen years since Tribal Voice closed.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

I really miss PowWow. It was way ahead of it's time, especially in the text-to-voice and voice synthesis areas. I spent many hours in uni playing with it, and you could really creep yourself out with the voice settings. Lol The teamed web surfing was also very handy and used a lot for study groups spread around town.

 

[slightlyevolved]

Lol
That Talkomatic screen shot. That has to be at the Universit of Illinois, Urbana..., and PapaDels is *still* better than Garcia's....