Messaging overload – hub needed

Owen Williams nails the dumb thinking in the instant messaging sector in Messaging overload.

He writes:

I remember two years ago being excited for the convergence of messaging apps; when I could use Windows Live Messenger/AIM/Skype/Google talk in one app: trillian. I remember thinking that it was exciting to have less apps, not more, to message my friends.

After all, it’s a hassle to maintain friends lists in all these different places… and you eventually have those conversations along the lines of “is it better to Snapchat you or send you a Twitter DM?”

My strategy is to restrict messaging to the basics, which mainly means Apple's iMessage, Twitter and Gmail which, in theory, can also lead to Google Chat or Hangouts but rarely does.

Notifications stay off most of the day

Sometimes incoming messages arrive from other services. As I keep notifications off so I can focus on work, there’s little instant about them. I’ve been known to find Facebook messages weeks, even months after they were sent.

And there’s the problem. Instant messaging only works if it is instant. Simple would be nice too.

Navigating through tons of options simply doesn’t make sense. There's nothing instant, simple or intuitive about it.

Instant messaging won’t become useful again until I can manage all the incoming channels from a single hub. That is something the BlackBerry OS does well. The phone's operating system automatically puts all your contacts and all kinds of incoming messages in one single, central app.

I’d like to see something similar across all operating systems, but that's unlikely to happen given the fragmentation of services and the motivations of OS companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft which each offer their own preferred forms of communication.