the finger-keyboard synapse

BlowSearch Messenger just plain blows

"Know thy competition;" yesterday, a BitWise user brought to my attention a new IM program called BlowSearch Messenger (BSM). (BSM is a terrible acronym, IMHO, given its similarity to the acronym BDSM.) Keep in mind that their big focus is encryption/privacy.

1. Even though it connects to the big 4, you still have to register separately with BSM. Not only that, they require all sorts of information, like your full name, city & zip, email address, your birthday, etc. While you can easily make things up, it's annoying to have to be told "You didn't enter everything!" when you don't want to enter it in the first place.
   
2. After registering, I got an email that had no subject, a blank "to" line, and said, "Thank you for being a part of ." No joke.
   
3. It's missing basic functionality like being able to read away messages.
   
4. They expect you to either put up with ads or pay to remove the ads (and get higher encryption). On top of that, their rates are quarterly, from $3 to $10.
   
5. As far as I can tell, only text messages are encrypted, not files or anything else. Not only that--both people have to have BSM, so unless your buddies also use it, you don't get the encryption.
   
6. It requires IE (because it uses its SSL layer, I believe) and is Windows-only.

I'll be honest here: if you need to connect to the big 4, there's no reason to use BSM instead of Trillian or gaim, which both give you the encryption for free. I find it baffling that they expect people to pay up to $40 per year to get something that they could otherwise get for free. Not to mention, their explanation of the encryption and how they use it is downright shady.

I can't see any reason to use BSM. If there are good reasons, I'd like to know, just so I can better understand this [non-]competition.

Thanks for your comments and we'll take them into consideration as we upgrade BSM.

BTW, there is a complete description of the encryption mechanism used in BSM available on the site. There's nothing shady about it. It's proprietary and patent pending. Did you think we would open it up to our competitors? No one else has 4,096 encryption over the open internet. Ours is unhackable.

Also, the "ads" displayed consist of one simple small banner ad, which you fail to mention. There are no pop ups, spyware, or other malicious components involved. Our registration process asks for a lot less information than most other IM products.

Thnaks for your thoughts.

I don't like ads of any kind, including banner ads, and before paying to remove them, I would research every other ad-free product. In the case of Opera browser, while the "relevant" Google bar ad is not too intrusive considering the outstanding Opera experience, I am much more comfortable customizing it away.

It almost seems like a necessary evil for BitWise to be able to connect to the big ones, as people get very attached to their particular messengers.

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