Digsby adds audio, video, and Twitter, drops private beta

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Freeware, Social Software, Beta

Digsby adds audio, video, and Twitter, drops private beta

by Brad Linder Mar 20th 2008

Digsby, the instant messaging, social networking, email super-tool we first told you about last month launches its public beta today. That means you can sign up without an invitation code. The latest version of the Digsby client also has ton of new features:

Twitter support
Audio and video chat through a partnership with ToxBox
Spell checking
New "listening to..." status box will automatically update your status with currently playing songs from iTunes or Winamp
Block contacts by right clicking in the IM window

If you're still not exactly sure what Digsby does, it's basically a single application that lets you communicate with your IM contacts, friends on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, or anyone else thanks to email notifications. You can configure Digsby to display a pop up alert every time you receive an email, every time a friend sends a message via Twitter, or every time someone changes their MySpace or Facebook status. You can also see a list of recent updates in each category.

Digsby historically has been a bit of a memory hog compared to lighter weight instant messaging programs like Pidgin. But considering just how many features Digsby has that Pidgin lacks, the memory use doesn't seem excessive.

The application is available for Windows XP and Vista. Mac and Linux clients are in the works.

Tags: chat, digsby, facebook, instant-messenger, myspace, pidgin, tweet-this, twitter

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Drew said 11:45AM on 3-20-2008

I've been using Digsby for about a month and a half and it is absolutely the best program I've found since Firefox. It replaced Pidgin within 20 minutes of installing it, not to mention Gmail Notifier, and always running instances of Outlook and Firefox (for Facebook). I was hooked the minute I archived and deleted emails without even opening Gmail. It's a little lacking in the skin department, but I have a feeling that will explode once people start really using it. If there's one free program you download this year, definitely make it Digsby. (Okay, that sounded like an ad, so let me say I'm not related to the project, just a very satisfied user!)

john said 12:24PM on 3-20-2008

While reading this article, and I was struck that it probably was relevant to a social networking site, HumanBook, which has over 250 million profiles of people, including you, your friends, classmates and relatives.

The HumanBook is a mutually managed people directory. People list their own real-life connections, and other connections they have awareness of, to create a lifelong network. The network houses the connections, and then the collaboratively updated address book nurtures them, assuring that they need never be lost. HumanBook is the tool that will allow you to cherish and sustain all of the connections of your whole life. So if you're interested, go to http://www.HumanBook.com and find your profile today!

archpope said 2:46PM on 3-20-2008

"Digsby historically has been a bit of a memory hog compared to lighter weight instant messaging programs like Pidgin."

Right now, Digsby is using 59MB of system resources. Pidgin, before I uninstalled it last December, used up 2,104MB of resources. This decision was easy for me.

Dunda said 6:24PM on 3-28-2008

Um, are you saying Pidgen used 2 GB of memory on your computer? That seems a bit far-fetched.

Chelle Parmele said 7:43PM on 3-31-2008

I'm another who has been using Digsby for a while and have really enjoyed it. I was the envy in the office when I told everyone it was invite only.

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