Pidgin updates

[guinness]

I'm surprised Pidgin is still popular considering the MSN network will migrate to Skype after March.

[webfork]

I'm surprised Pidgin is still popular considering the MSN network will migrate to Skype after March.

True. It's a huge consolidation, but there's always going to be a group that wants to maintain connection with other or older networks of people. Although there's some discussion of integrating other popular networks (AIM/XMPP/ICQ), there's nothing there yet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Messenger). Also, they're dumping the regular messenger and just moving to Skype, whose interface I'm not thrilled with (and I suspect other users aren't either). http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2013/01 ... -to-skype/

Plus, Microsoft doesn't seem to have learned from Facebook and Google's problems in the privacy dept:

http://bgr.com/2012/07/24/skype-privacy ... ft-spying/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson ... ype-calls/

[guinness]

I haven't used Messenger since 2005. I also wonder what happens to Microsoft Notification Protocol? Will they ever use it again?

[webfork]

they're dumping the regular messenger and just moving to Skype, whose interface I'm not thrilled with (and I suspect other users aren't either).

It's looking like Pidgin (for one) will not be integrating Skype users once the Messenger consolidation happens.

Knowing Microsoft, they'll eventually open up some limited-use (basic chat only) interface, but it's interesting to see that users will be asked to either use Skype or switch IM networks. Anyone who's used to having one client connect to all their networks will likely just switch, unless everyone they know is on Skype.