Chum.ly is a messaging platform based on Status.net and designed to do all the things that Twitter doesn’t. The Chum.ly team looked at how the Twitter ecosystem was developing. They saw an awesome messaging platform surrounded by third-party applications that served to enhance it. There are specialized applications for sharing photos, posting videos, sending long messages, and more. Chum.ly saw the opportunity to combine all of this into one easy to use application.
Chum.ly integrates with your existing social networks, allowing you to broadcast your message across all of them at once. It also integrates with these other services to help you receive your messages all in one place. Messaging is not limited to 140 characters, providing a link to the full text on services where there is a limitation. Other features include tagging posts, conversation threads, re-broadcasting messages, groups, pictures, video links, and documents.
The primary timeline looks just like Twitter, as expected. There are a few features that immediately set Chum.ly apart. Instead of using the ‘@’ symbol for mentions, you use a slash ‘/’. Chum.ly also features groups, which you can direct a message to by using the ‘!’ symbol. The posting box offers a few interesting features:
- Attach a file – this can be an Image, Audio, Audio+Image, Video, or a Document.
- Keywords – Chum.ly will recognize hashtags within your message, or you can add them using the keywords option.
- Save as draft – save your update and edit/post it later
- Make private – this will make sure your post is only visible by you and the people or groups it’s directed to.
Not only can you save and edit drafts, but you can also edit updates you’ve already posted. On each post, you can: delete, comment or reply, resend an update (think retweet), favorite, or forward an update via email. Updates can also include location information. You can access the entire conversation thread from any update by clicking “in context.” You can filter your timeline to only show Chum.ly users, excluding updates from external services. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can also choose to see 1 post per user for the past 2 weeks.
Chum.ly is not just another Twitter/Facebook client, although you can use it as such. It is a complete messaging platform on it’s own that integrates intelligently with your other social media sites. It needs a little polish in some areas (no OAuth support for Twitter, for instance), but it’s potential is great and I will definitely be keeping an eye on this one.
You can connect with me on Chum.ly here and tell us what you think about it in the comments.