Weblin : a different Instant Messaging approach.

Some weeks ago, I first discovered Weblin browsing the blog Presse-Citron. It was located as a side widget.

Being curious I gave it a rapid try and played a few minutes with the Weblin lite version as offered in the blog.

What is Weblin? It is an instant messaging system that aims to connect you to other Weblin users currently viewing the same website as you. And rather then doing it in a typical chat window, it uses an overlaying animated avatar that stands at the bottom of your browser’s window.

The feeling was not negative, it was amusing but I was not trilled. That was enough for me at that point: I was a little more knowledgeable, I knew about Weblin better than before.

Recently Eric Dupin wrote an article about Weblin. Reading it raised my curiosity once again and I decided to give it a deeper try. This time I decided to install the client on my machine.

Weblinstaller.exe is a small installer that calls back the weblin server to download the latest version of the application.

Installation of Weblin is simple; it create a temporary account first, accessing that account only gives you access to a limited number of options in Weblin website to customize your avatar. Later you can identify yourself with an account of your choice and access to more futile feature like choosing your avatars from a wider list.

Basic usage of Weblin is intuitive. Yet again a new icon in my systray, yet again a new service running on my machine. With Weblin enabled, just go on your favourite website and see other weblins and engage conversation.

Your avatar and those for other users will show t the bottom of your browser window. You can also define to be visible or not, automatically connect to the “chat room” when you enter a website or not, etc.

I must say I haven’t explored all the features of Weblin: changing room, an interesting yet-to-explore applications’ menu, weblin publishing and others.

On the weblin account page itself, there is plenty of options. Not my idea to detail them all. But I captured the classical describe-yourself-and-display-it-to-others, a rather complete avatar customization interface.

There is also a section about “Buying Gifts” associated with a virtual backpack for the Avatar. Credits to purchase items seem to be linked to your chat activities. The more you chat the more credits you get.

Your weblin account can retain 3 different Avatars but you can only activate one at a time. The activation impacts all your opened browser pages. It is not possible to have Avatar “A” active on a specific set of sites and Avatar B active on a different set of sites.

You need to test Weblin to know if you like it or not and certainly if you want to use this kind of communication channel to fulfil your daily desire of chatting with other people.

My own view is on this: Not for me.

Will it works for you ?

Little note: It took quite a while to complete this article: Good weather and related outdoor activities definitely slow down my posting frequency.