AT&T released their new AT&T Messenger 5.0 IM client (http://www.att.net/messenger), based on the former BellSouth Messenger client acquired from the AT&T purchase of BellSouth almost a year ago.
AT&T Messenger is probably one of the few branded IM clients provided by an Internet provider and only available to their Internet customers. It's currently only available to AT&T FastAccess DSL and AT&T WorldNet customer. There's no expected date for AT&T Yahoo! customers to have access to the client. However, AT&T Messenger is based on Jabber, so you can IM all of your friends on Gmail, Livejournal, etc.. just by adding them. They can add you via your bellsouth.net or att.net email address.
Another great feature: multi-protocol compatibility. You can add your Windows Live Messenger, AIM, and Yahoo! Messenger accounts and chat with your friends on those networks. While you can't recieve files, etc.. from those users, the 3 special features of AT&T Messenger are available to you with them, such as file sharing, photo sharing, and webcam.
AT&T provides 3 really cool features with their client:
- AT&T File Sharing: Send a file to a user on AT&T, or any other protocol it supports, and it'll send the user a download link to the file
- AT&T Folder Sharing, similar to Windows Live's product
- AT&T Photo Sharing lets you share photos with ease, manage them locally and send users a link over IM
- AT&T Video Sharing lets you watch each other's webcam, even if the other user doesn't have AT&T Messenger
Overall, their IM product is not bad, even if it can use a better UI. It's functional and fairly bug free. Kudos to the AT&T Messenger team, and if you have Jabber, hit me up at jhaygood86@bellsouth.net
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