Zimbie Keeps You Notified Via IM
20th of August 2007 by conor
Zimbie comes from research carried out by the TSSG (Telecommunications Software & Systems) Group in Waterford Institute of Technology. TSSG is a hotbed of research commercialisation and I'm always interested to see what they are doing.
The first question you ask with any new product or service is what does it do?. When I first encountered Zimbie via an email from Sean Lyons and looked at their site, I wasn't really able to tell. It appeared to have something to do with alerts, IM, RSS and blogging. Once I talked to Sean about it, I understood it and liked a lot of what he had to say. Zimbie is about delivering time-sensitive information via IM. The first implementation is focused on RSS and they are using blogs as an example.
Over the weekend I went to try it out and got a few surprises. The first is that it is not a web-service at all but PC software you install. First you start with their Jabber-compatible IM client and then you add the RSS plugin. You configure that with the RSS feed you want to deliver to people. Then you logon to GTalk and others can add that GTalk user as a friend and start getting RSS notifications from your bot via IM. Phew. I had to read a 15 page Word Doc and watch a video before I got it working!
I can think of lots of great uses for RSS-to-IM, but new blogpost notifications is not one of them. A trivial example might be something like the sadly neglected corkprobs.info site I created which allows Twitter users to report gas/water/road problems in County Cork. You tweet that there is a crash on the N8, Zimbie monitors the RSS feed and delivers that message via IM to anyone who is subscribed so they can find an alternative route home.
I worked in enterprise software for several years and I always felt there must be a simpler way of doing what the woefully misnamed SNMP did in many scenarios. Build RSS into monitoring software like Nagios and Zimbie could deliver filtered notifications to multiple sysadmins with nothing more installed at the receiving end than an IM client. The other examples on the Zimbie site make sense too: latest news/sport/business feeds, changes in stock markets and updates on car or property sites. I would have killed for a service like it during the recent election.
However I have doubts that the current implementation is going to get much traction amongst early adopters. Many of us have MSN, Yahoo and GTalk Messengers installed but disabled and which we have replaced with GAIM/Pidgin, Miranda, Trillian or Adium. The thought of installing another client (all 28 Megs of it) particularly another Jabber one will be a deal breaker for many. I think that creating Bots as plug-ins for GAIM/Pidgin would garner a lot more interest and give immediate cross-platform capability.
A client-based install makes sense in an enterprise environment but in consumer web I have to wonder if a web-service like Feedcrier would suit a lot more users? Is a hybrid approach possible?
I would love to see all those notification and update programs that seem to be included by every recent software install replaced with a subscription to the relevant RSS feed. This would be via feed reader for low-priority things like JRE updates and via Zimbie for important updates like security fixes.
I'm going to continue watching Zimbie closely as it is early days for them and there are lots of directions they can take based on the same core technology. Even within RSS there is so much happening in the semi-real-time notification area that they have myriad opportunities for exploiting niches.
Comment posted by Zimbie Beta Trial
at 9/11/2007 3:56:26 AM
[] http://ie.blognation.com/2007/08/20/zimbie-keeps-you-notified-via-im/ []
Comment posted by Ernest
at 8/27/2007 6:19:45 PM
For commercial grade IM interactive agents/bots that have been deployed in the financial and media industry for years – check www.vayusphere.com
Comment posted by Zimbie
at 8/27/2007 4:59:04 PM
[] Zimbie Keeps You Notified Via IM []
Comment posted by Wellboy
at 8/21/2007 7:56:04 AM
Well boy!
I use phpBB on the http://www.upthedeise.com forums and installed the RSS2 plugin which basically allows you to view the forum as an RSS feed.
I then installed Zimbie to run an IM service that watches the board I used the IMPRESS plugin which meant I didn't have to write a line of code!
Now anyone can add the upthedeise.butty@gmail.com to their buddy list and be notfied of new threads on the board could be very handy for people wanting to seed message board forums etc.
Zimbie has a lot of potential looking forward to MSN support in particular!
Wellboy!
Comment posted by Wellboy
at 8/21/2007 7:52:52 AM
Well boy!
I use phpBB on the http://www.upthedeise.com forums and installed the RSS2 plugin which basically allows you to view the forum as an RSS feed.
I then installed Zimbie to run an IM service that watches the board
Now anyone can add the upthedeise.butty@gmail.com to their buddy list and be notfied of new threads on the board could be very handy for people wanting to seed message board forums etc.
Zimbie has a lot of potential looking forward to MSN support in particular!
Wellboy!
Comment posted by Kieran O’Sullivan
at 8/21/2007 6:56:47 AM
Yes, we have started our next development phase where we plan to add support for the other main IM protocols, (MSNP, AOL, Yahoo). We also intend to create an enterprise version of Zimbie where the application runs in server mode managing multiple bots in a scalable fashion. We can currently run in a non-UI mode but we have yet to add an admin interface to this.
Thanks again,
Kieran.
Comment posted by Conor O’Neill
at 8/21/2007 6:47:55 AM
These are exactly the kinds of niches I was hoping to hear about.
I think the blogging example actually under-sells what Zimbie can do.
Are there any plans to run it as a windows service so that the bots can run un-logged-in and unattended on a server or a VM?
Comment posted by Kieran O’Sullivan
at 8/21/2007 6:43:44 AM
Hi Conor,
Thanks for the mention. I would just like to add that the rss service to bloggers is really just an example of the type of IM service that can be created using Zimbie. The application is essentially designed for developers to quickly create IM services using the framework provided. Services can be created from simple auto-responses to fully developed applications, for instance we are supporting projects here with Waterford City Council where they have a buddy interacting with the Regional library database for end users to query over IM. Also a partner in Germany (PSI) has integrated Zimbie with a flood warning system to notify operatives over IM.
Best Regards,
Kieran.