الأربعاء، 14 مارس 2012

Simplifying: Instant Messenger Service Discontinued

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Simplifying: Instant Messenger Service Discontinued

Way before social media, if you can remember that far back, there were these things called instant messengers. They could have – perhaps should have – been what social networks became. So before Twitter and Facenook emerged, FeedBlitz added the ability to subscribe to your favorite blogs via instant messenger (IM); specifically Skype, AOL, MSN and Yahoo messengers.

Although it sounded neat, this aspect of our service was never popular, and nowadays IM updates simply aren’t as important as email or the social networks. So we’ve discontinued the option. Subscription forms will now no longer offer IM subscriptions, nor will updates be sent via IM any more. This makes life simpler for subscribers, removing visual clutter and options that were very rarely used, as well as removing a burden from FeedBlitz and allowing us to get more focused.

I’d like to recommend an alternative service for IM subscribers, but in a quick search I couldn’t actually find one that’s still running, which says a great deal about the demand for this type of service. If your IM client supports it, it may have an RSS option; use that if you want blog updates IM’d to you. If you know an RSS to IM service that’s active, feel free to recommend it in the comments.