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Messaging Merger

CMGI gobbles Tribal Voice, and Lycos partners on AOL Instant Messenger service.

By Tom Spring, PCWorld   

Together, the deals make CMGI, a holding company for technology firms, the newest contender in an ongoing messaging war taking shape on the Web. Staunch enemies America Online and Microsoft have railed all year, blocking interaction between their competing products.

Tribal Voice's PowWow software is used by five million subscribers and is distributed by AT&T and the British Internet service provider FreeServe. AltaVista, also a CMGI property, plans to license Tribal Voice technology for its own instant messaging client, according to representatives.

CMGI's alliance with AOL will likely bode well for AOL, as potentially millions more instant messaging clients embrace its messaging protocol. The deal also gives Lycos a huge head start in the messaging niche. The newcomer can easily catch up with Microsoft and Yahoo. Overnight, Lycos adds critical mass to its customer base in the messaging market, where the defining feature is how many people you can chat with.

AOL: Still the Chat King

America Online is the undisputed leader in messaging. With an estimated 90 million customers split between AIM and ICQ, it dwarfs its nearest competitor Microsoft, which serves around 4.5 million MSN Messenger subscribers. On Wednesday, AOL representatives said its ICQ instant messaging software community had passed 50 million users.

Now, the AOL-Lycos effort will invite 30 million Lycos Web site visitors to communicate with AOL's huge Buddy List Network.

The AOL/Microsoft brouhaha has subsided considerably since this summer. In November, Microsoft said it won't try to make its latest instant messaging client, MSN Messenger Service, compatible with AIM. Microsoft cited possible security risks for MSN users as the reason for its decision. AOL, for its part, had claimed security violations of its network when Microsoft briefly made its MSN Messenger compatible with AIM.

Tribal Voice will combine with CMGI's existing e-mail company Activerse, the companies say. CMGI plans to develop real-time communications software and instant messaging tools for the consumer and business markets.