Digsby Public Beta: Better that Pidgin?

http://www.digsby.com - So you've got 20 windows open on your desktop: Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc; all cluttering your desktop space. Now comes Digsby, of which the public beta came out yesterday, March 20.

Digsby is an application that combines instant messaging, email, and social networks into one application. The features are useful, allowing updates from various email clients and networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. In addition to IM-ing your contacts from AIM to Google Talk, you can update your Facebook status, check your friends' news feeds, and post to Twitter all in the same program. The integration between different services is seamless. However, other widely used social networks (Flickr, Orkut, Pownce, etc.) are still missing at the moment. Additionally, you can't add multiple contacts into the same conversation window and make a chat room with your contacts. Digsby, however, does support audio/video chatting capabilities (powered by TokBox), a feature missing from other IM aggregate clients such as Pidgin. Keep in mind that Pidgin also doesn't support social network integration within their application.

It's still in beta, but the interface seems a tad bit messy. The best way to describe is that it feels very yahoomessenger-ish (sorrry Yahoo). You know, kind of that cluttered, unintegrated feel, which seems weird to me because the Digsby homepage is very clean and well designed. I was expecting something along the same line. The application does allow you to switch between built-in themes, but the included designs are no better nor cleaner than the default skin. After making the jump from Pidgin, which has one of the cleanest interface for any IM client I've seen, Digsby falls short in the visuals department.

At any rate, I'm impressed with Digsby's overall performance and its ability to consolidate different services into one client. I surely recommend this application for anyone who wants the social dynamics of their internet self to be conducted from a single, easy-to-use, service. Mac and Linux users? Sorry, it's Windows only right now, but there are talks of porting it to other OSs.