Think of it as one stop shopping for your major IM connections. If you a very connected person and are looking for a way to consolidate all your messaging methods, Nimbuzz wants to help.

It's TMI, folks. Modernspeak for Too Much Information. Usually that means "more than I care to know about what you and your cousin did after too much champaign at the wedding". In this case it means that there are so many ways of staying in touch via The Web that it's burdensome to keep all those apps running in all the places you compute. You've got your Skype program open, you've got Google Mail or iGoogle with its GoogleTalk Chat and Voice/Video calling, you've got Yahoo Instant Messenger and/or
AIM
ICQ
Jabber
Windows LIVE (MSN)
Gadu Gadu

It would be nice if everyone used the same system but they don't. Plus you've got Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. What's a communigeek to DO?

A Dutch company called Nimbuzz (I hate the name, which is a modification of Nimbus) offers a product based around a calling system, somewhat like Skype. You install the free Mobile application on your cell phone, or you install the app on your Mac or PC, or you log into their web interface. You can even install their "widget" on your own personal or business web site so people can Nimbuzz YOU without knowing your ICQ, Skype, etc, account name. As with Skype, you can call Nimbuzz-to-Nimbuzz for free or you can call off-net for a pretty cheap rate. I tested the in-net calling from the program on my cellphone to my cousin Harry in Bogota using the web interface. It sounded very good.

But what I think is more interesting is the concept of having all these diverse communications systems terminate in one place. I don't think Nimbuzz treats any of them as well as their native interfaces do but, for the benfit of having just one program to run, it's a fair tradeoff. In most cases you get to see the statuses of all these people across different cimmunications platforms in one simple window.

Not Ready For Prime Time
The program isn't solid yet. Many things don't work right including their own support and corporate PR. I wrote them about some oddities, truly thinking they were "ID-10t" errors (remove the hyphen and look again...) on August 27 and I heard back from support on Sept 23 and I still haven't heard back from the Communcations person directly regarding this blog entry. So I can only tell you what I see and if they provide more info, I'll update this article.

Skype seems to integrate pretty well. However, it only works on the Mobile version. They claim it's for technical reasons - I wonder if it's political since Skype's parent company IS an investor in this product. Still, having a simple Skype "client" (a "client" is a program that talks to a "server" elsewhere) on your web or WiFi-enabled cell phone is pretty cool. One Skype call I made that did not go through, also locked up the entire phone and I had to reboot. There's no video capability but that would be a big order for a cell phone.

Another voice and video service, Google Talk, didn't fare so well. Chat worked fine and the Nimbuzz client could see if I was Away or Available (but would not recognize that I had logged out unless I quit then restarted Nimbuzz). But, using the mobile app, I was never able to call to or from my PC or Mac running Google Talk (in the iGoogle or Gmail interfaces); the closest I got was that the PC would ring but when I answered it, the mobile client kept ringing as if it had never been answered. I was able to call Mac to PC so I know they were running Google Talk OK.

Another very strange thing is that my (few) Google Talk contacts both show up twice. Art at UCAN shows up twice and so does my test account. What's more, one of each does not show the (useless) CALL choice while the other one does. WTF?

One point of confusion for my age-addled brane is the fact that each type of Nimbuzz interface can get different mixes of feeds. Mainly, only the mobile can get Skype and only the mobile and desktop versions can make SIP calls. It would be nice if they all did the same things in different places.

Many Types of Typing
I connected Nimbuzz to my Facebook and Yahoo IM accounts and, in a short time, it had retrieved all my YM contacts and their pictures. Facebook worked OK initially but, once I enabled it on the web client, all I had was a list of account numbers which is useless. If I disabled Facebook on the web client, then the Mac client loads the FB names properly. I think it's also supposed to show your contacts' pictures. I see a few from Skype but no others. Of course, you can also IM via Skype and Google.

Nimbuzz has Twitter connectivity of limited usefulness. At the top of the Nimbuzz client or web UI there's a field where you can type a greeting or status. If you check the right setting, whatever you type here becomes a Twit. But since this text also appears in others' Nimbuzz clients and to Google Talk contacts, you might want to change it from time to time and NOT have the change be Twat. (Past imperfect subjunctive of "to Twit"). Also, you can't GET Twits in Nimbuzz which I think would be just fine because, since I'd have the mobile client running ANYWAY, I could get Twits without paying SMS fees.

Take Your Office On The Road
Another thing that Nimbuzz duzz is to connect to a variety of commercial (i.e. para dinero) VoIP services like Siggate - most of the "recommended partners" seem to be European but it would probably work with Vonage, e.g., as well. But what I found really useful, and here's the TELECOM tie-in (finally), was to log this SIP client into UCAN's SwitchVox SIP phone system. I just gave the proper IP address, SIP account name and password, and now I have x657 right on my cell phone. This means that with EVDO or other cellular broadband, I can get my UCAN calls anyplace there's service and UCAN doesn't have to pay for the calls and I don't have to pay for the minutes. If you don't have broadband you probably wouldn't be using Nimbuzz anyway though you could use it at a WiFi hotspot.

On my phone, and probably on most, you could not use the mic and speaker that you use for cell calls. You'd need a headset like you'd use for Skype calls. I tested using the built-in speakerphone and it was fine for me but UCAN's ever-patient Laura got a lot of echo when testing. That would not have happened with a headset.

This last item can be very powerful for people with SIP-enabled phone systems and I earnestly solicit comments from people who've tried it.

If you try Nimbuzz. check back here and tell your story.