Last night we launched our new site along with a bit of a change in direction for IMified. We started out as a tool (IM bot) that made it easy to connect your instant messenger to popular web applications. We quickly realized that there are a lot of developers out there looking for a simple way to build IM bots and connect them to their applications. V2 of IMified aims to solve that problem by offering a web-based platform that allows developers to write their IM application once in any language, host it on any web server, and point it to any number of screen names on public IM networks like Gtalk™, AIM™, MSN™, and Yahoo™.

What’s new?
A lot. Our new site introduces the IMified developer platform for quickly and easily launching IM applications (bots). Our FREE developer platform includes:

• Up to three custom Gtalk/Jabber screen names on our bot.im domain
• The ability to connect your bot to public networks. (Gtalk™, AIM™, MSN™, Yahoo™)
• An interactive real-time debugger for testing your bots
• Simple REST API for sending IM messages/alerts and polling for IM status (presence)
• Live real-time usage statistics on your applications
• Free developer support
• Publicize your bot in the App Directory (soon)

** The platform is still in beta so please send feedback

What will pricing look like when the beta is over?
Pricing is still being determined but our goal is offer an easy and affordable way to create IM bots and we intend to always offer a free and low cost hosting option.

Ok, so what’s happening to the existing IMified bots?
Nothing, they’re still there. You can find our old home page here and you can still add/edit widgets to your IMified menu. We’re working on moving all of our widgets into the new App Directory (coming soon). Each widget will have its own screen name and in turn offer more/better functionality.

We’re looking forward to seeing what you create on the new platform. Feedback is welcome and is appreciated.

IMified is pleased to announce the launch of our hosted services available through the IMified platform. Now anyone can create an IM bot just as easily as creating a web application.

We’re convinced that the ubiquity and ease of use of IM makes it important for everyone to IMify their web apps. So we’ve created a platform that makes it fast and simple to create and deploy IM integration that runs over multiple networks. A simple RESTful API allows you to add IM capabilities to your existing application using the programing tools, techniques, and server components you’re already using for your web site.

You don’t need to build a web server to create a great web app. You shouldn’t have to build an IM server to create a great IM app.

We want everyone to be able to add IM to their sites, so we’ve created a pricing structure that allows anyone to get involved. You can create widgets that run in the IMified bot for free or get your own Jabber/Gtalk ID for as little as $10 a month. For more serious usage, we offer upgraded services that can handle the needs of the most demanding bot.

Want to IMify your app? Check out our developer pages for details on the API, our pricing, and to sign up. The service is in a limited beta right now, but if you leave your contact details, we’ll send you an invite as slots open up.

For those of you who have taken advantage of the now deprecated widget API , your widgets will continue to function as normal. We’ll send you details on how you can take advantage of the new API as we get closer to opening up the platform, however you may request an invite to the beta if you’d like a sneak peak.

This one is killing us. After a week of back and forth emails with Microsoft trying to get our screen name to appear online to more than 1000 users at a time, we’ve been told no. The limit with MSN occurs when over 1000 screen names request presence for our screen name at any given time, meaning that if your not one of the lucky 1000, our screen name will appear offline to existing users and new users cannot be added to our buddy list.

Now, we certainly understand that MSN has policies in place that need to be adhered to, but AOL contacted us on day one to proactively offer a solution for a possible issue on their network and things have been running fine on AIM as well as Yahoo and Gtalk. The only option we were given was to build our service on their SDK and then and only then would they lift the limit on our screen name.

So, unfortunately there are a lot of MSN users out there who will not be able to access IMified. We regret this but tried to do everything we could to rectify the situation. If you think this sucks as much as we do, send an email over to: bizdesk@microsoft.com and tell them you want your IMified. If you signed up for us on MSN and would still like to use our service, please go ahead and signup from another network.

DIGG THIS

I should probably have my nose in some code right now fixing bugs and building new services, but I’d like take a minute to reflect and share on our experience launching IMified. In just 5 days we’ve gone from 2 users to many thousands and have been getting some really positive feedback. Our users have used IMified to perform over 25,000 tasks at the time of this writing! What really amazes us is this all happened by submitting one post to the Techcrunch company review forum. That’s it, just one post. The buzz that followed was a direct result of this post as we didn’t even try pitching our service to anyone else. The idea was to get some users in who enjoyed reviewing new services and get some feedback before doing any viral marketing. Lucky for us, that plan backfired and the news spread. We’re really proud of the fact that we’ve had zero server down time and just some minor network interuptions on AIM and MSN. AOL and Microsoft even contacted us to say Kudos! How cool?

We created IMified to solve a specific problem we were having in our daily work day. We wanted to find a way to add and complete todo’s in our Basecamp projects without having to open a new tab in our browser and login. What started as a nifty little hack turned into a service that can integrate all the tools we use in one place with a consistant interface that’s always on.

The point is, if your having a problem, chances are there’s others having the same problem. Go ahead and take a stab at solving it. Now back to coding.

4 months, a few bucks, and a couple cases of Redbull later, Imified is finally open!

We hope we’ve put together a fun and useful productivity tool for your bag. We felt it was about time someone took the IM client and made it actually work for you. We’re just getting started and have some really cool features and new applications in the works so stay tuned.

As far as we know, there aren’t any other services out there like us, so we’re gonna need your help in shaping the direction of Imified. Let us know what you’d like to do through your IM client. We’re all ears.

Please forgive us if you stumble across a few bugs while talking to Imified. We’re still in Beta and will be working out the kinks for a bit.

Thanks!

Dave & Anthony