Digsby
Digsby is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application developed by dotSyntax, LLC. Digsby is written in wxPython and uses WebKit for rendering. It supports most mainstream IM protocols such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, and Facebook Chat. Digsby also supports e-mail notifications and alerts from MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It is released free under a proprietary license. Development is funded through optional sponsored add-on applications via installer and a distributed computing research function that is turned on by default. It needs registration, which can be done through the program's installer or through a web interface. As of March 20, 2008, Digsby is in public beta, and no longer requires an invitation to set up an account.
History
Digsby started as the school project of Steve Shapiro. Digsby was Steve's project while he was working on his MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Later, he decided to materialize this project into an actual application by forming a team of developers, who began to code Digsby.
It took two years to code Digsby until its public launch in March 2008. Initially, the idea was to make a basic multi-protocol IM client. The email notification and the social networking site integration were both added later on in development.
Digsby is being actively developed, with over 40 releases so far (including alpha and beta releases).
Name and Mascot
The name Digsby was thought of as a name that was simple, easy to spell and remember, something that sounded like fun, and most importantly, something that had yet to be registered as a .com domain name. The Digsby mascot was designed by Hewlett Packard's Logoworks. The idea was to have an actual mascot, rather than just a logo. Quoting Steve,
Features
Supported protocols
- .NET Messenger Service (Windows Live Messenger, commonly known as MSN)
- OSCAR (AIM/ICQ/.Mac)
- XMPP (Jabber, Google Talk)
- Yahoo!
- Facebook Chat
The program includes an email client, with new mail notifications, POP3 and IMAP support. It automatically retrieves a "from" email address from the logged in instant messaging profiles.
Social networking
Digsby allows users to add social networking sites to the application:
- MySpace: Shows updates to a user's friends' profiles, status, and private messages, and instant access to various parts of their MySpace account, such as their profile, home page, blog, etc.
- Facebook: Shows updates in a user's friend feeds.
- Twitter: Allows users to easily submit new "tweets", and view their friends' tweets.
- LinkedIn: Shows various updates from a user's friends.
Buddy list
It is possible to customize the buddy list by re-arranging of all aspects of it and skinning it for a personalized look. Users can set custom notifications for various actions such as contacts signing in and out, messages sent and received, etc. It supports meta-contacts, which is a drag-and-drop system that allows a user to have one alias for a contact who uses multiple IM protocols with different accounts. Buddy list, IM accounts, widgets, and application settings are synchronized on Digsby's server, so all user settings can be transferred between installations on other computers.
External links
cs:Digsby da:Digsby de:Digsby nl:Digsby pl:Digsby simple:Digsby