David Weekly, a geek whose work teaching tech in Ghana we blogged earlier this year, just launched the public release of a software project he’s been developing for more than a year. IMSmarter is described as “a new kind of instant messaging enhancement that empowers all of the major messaging services with cool, new features — without requiring a software download or even an email address.”
IM Smarter gives users a single place to easily and securely search all their IM conversations from work, home, and elsewhere. It works with official clients like AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, and ICQ. It is also compatible with third-party clients like Trillian and even OS/X and Linux clients like iChat and GAIM.
Users can receive reminders and notifications across multiple IM networks… or create new blogs and post to them as easily as sending an IM, and they are notified whenever a user on their buddy list updates their own blog. Blog feeds are available in RSS, RSS2, and Atom formats, and users with existing blogs can automatically republish their IM Smarter blog entries to LiveJournal, Blogger, and Xanga.
The service runs on a cryptographically secured, fault-tolerant cluster of over a dozen servers in two near-military-grade secure Internet facilities in San Diego and San Jose.