Plugoo - Website to Messenger Communication

Thursday November 2nd 2006, 1:11 pm

Written by: Brian Benzinger

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plugoo, communication, chat, im, widget

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Plugoo is a neat widget that allows visitors to chat directly from your website to your Instant Messenger. With other embeddable chat services, such as Geesee, you and your visitors chat through the widget on your site. But with Plugoo, your visitors send and receive messages using the widget while you respond with your MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, or Jabber Instant Messenger (no AIM support yet).

The benefit of a chat working this way is that you, as the website owner, do not have to keep your browser open to stay connected with visitors. Also, your visitors do not have to have an account with an Instant Messenger to talk with you, even though you are using one. Another benefit with Plugoo is that your visitors can still get in touch with you when you are not available. Any messages sent to you while away will be directed to your email or received when you sign back on to your messenger. Sounds pretty good so far, but there is one problem: Plugoo only allows one user at a time to chat in real-time with you. When a session is active with one visitor, other visitors will have to either wait or send a message that you receive after the open session has ended.

The way the widget works is simple. You first register for your account selecting what Instant Messenger you would like to use (in my case, Google Talk), provide your Instant Message username, and create a password for your Plugoo account. You should then receive a buddy invitation to your messenger from Plugoo which has to be accepted so you can communicate with your visitors. All communication from the widget to the Instant Messenger goes through this buddy, which explains why only one person can talk at a time. Once that is set, you can login to the Plugoo website to customize and get the code for your widget.

To the right is Plugoo in action and you can use it to get in contact with me (note: If you are reading from a feed reader, you will have to visit my site to see it working). If I am signed into Google Talk, Plugoo will read, “I’m online, please feel free to chat with me,” and you will be able to send me a message. If I am away, offline, or currently talking to another person, you can either wait for me to get back or send a message to me that I can reply to when available.

Overall, Plugoo is nice in concept and makes for a decent communication tool, but it’s no where near perfect yet. The major flaw is that I can only talk to one person at a time, unlike an Instant Messenger or chat widget. Knowing that the communication between myself and the visitor goes through the Plugoo buddy, it is understandable, but it’s just a pain on the visitors end having to wait for an open connection if one is already active. I do however like that when I am offline or away, it still lets my visitors reach me by email through a little form. Plugoo also does not allow AIM users to use the service yet and I’ve seen no word of it being a possibility yet. I also found the widgets input fields to be a little buggy at times in Firefox, but that could just be a problem with my browser (worked fine in IE and Safari). Other than that, everything seems to run pretty smoothly. Hopefully there will be multiple user connections and AIM support in future releases. If you’re on the site and want to chat, feel free to message me. I should be on for the next couple hours but may be busy at times.

Update: Sorry everyone. It looks like Plugoo has recently turned their service into invite only at this time. It was originally open to public when I wrote about it, but I’m guessing they are trying to limit registrations now. I will update the post once it has opened its doors again.

(via Go2web2).

37 Comments

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# 1. Chris on Nov 02, 2006 at 2:39 pm

Interesting. A compare/contrast with meebome (http://www.meebome.com/) might be a nice follow-up.

For instance:
MeeboMe doesn’t have the “one at a time” restriction. But… it’s truly only useful for folks already using Meebo for their IM. MeeboMe doesn’t send messages to other IM platforms.

# 2. Oskar on Nov 04, 2006 at 5:23 am

Plugoo is implemented in http://ikusuki.blogspot.com and it works fine for our communication needs.

# 3. chen bo on Nov 04, 2006 at 7:29 am

sounds perfect. Who will invite me if Plugoo is not open registration?

# 4. M on Nov 04, 2006 at 11:25 am

If you’re looking for IM widgets for your blog, don’t miss the meebo widget, which integrates nicely into sites and does let you chat with more than one person at a time. Of course, you have to be logged into meebo to get the chat requests, but since meebo simultaneously lets you use all the other IM clients.

# 5. Oskar on Nov 07, 2006 at 3:16 pm

There is no need of invitation for getting plugoo. At least I did it from the web page without one!
I’m telling this because many people asked me within the web plugin… is free! you don’t need invitation!

# 6. Christophe on Nov 08, 2006 at 12:37 pm

I would like to try out Plugoo as well. If someone has a spare invitation, you can make me happy with it.
su_blimo@hotmail.com

Thanks

# 7. Jamie on Nov 09, 2006 at 2:22 am

How is this better than meebo me?

# 8. basilius on Nov 16, 2006 at 10:36 am

It would be nice to get an invitation vaso82@gmail.com.

Answering Jamie: you can’t use your own messenger with meebo, plugoo lets you do it.

# 9. marnie on Nov 16, 2006 at 12:03 pm

It would be nice to get an invitation ,Email to xujian@live.com,thanks

# 10. simon on Nov 16, 2006 at 8:13 pm

Looking for an invitation at tmaubslf@gmail.com.
Tanksss a lot :-)

# 11. Greg on Nov 20, 2006 at 10:32 am

I would Love an Invite
gbreen(AT)b7305(dot)com

# 12. Pozycjonowanie on Nov 20, 2006 at 1:42 pm

Looking for an invitation s3o(AT)s3o(dot)pl
Thanks :-)

# 13. Danish on Nov 21, 2006 at 5:39 am

plase invite me for the plugoo at dhashmi@gmail.com
Thax

# 14. A to Z of World on Nov 28, 2006 at 7:28 am

Nice application, though it has some downs. Would help a lot once it is perfect.

# 15. arkoudos on Dec 04, 2006 at 11:13 am

You might even consider another solution called ChatanGo [http://www.chatango.com]. Its also free, it supports multipe users, BUT you must login and chat from the site…

I’ve tested it, its quick - but i had a serius problem with greek (supports only latin speaking languages)..

# 16. Ruz on Jan 09, 2007 at 4:41 pm

I didn’t need an invitation. But my activation email got into my spam folder. It works just okay.

# 17. krissie on Jan 19, 2007 at 6:54 am

please invite me to plugoo at krissie128@gmail.com

if anyone has one! I really need it..

Thanks in Advance!

# 18. Alex on Jan 25, 2007 at 1:29 am

This is so cool and I’d love to get an invite. If anybody has any left plz send to daclina@gmail.com.

# 19. Ajit on Apr 04, 2007 at 12:09 am

Please send me an invitation on this id

# 20. Sharief S on May 02, 2007 at 5:20 am

Hello,

My network has been blocked on Meebo.com as well as google talk, can someone pls send me an invitation to use this one!! PLEEZ!!

sharief.shabodien@gmail.com

:) in advance

# 21. bssonline on Jun 01, 2007 at 3:31 pm

the service works great… no referal needed! just got my account in June 2007

# 22. ajmal on Jun 09, 2007 at 3:03 am

please send me an invitation too..

# 23. ajmal on Jun 09, 2007 at 3:06 am

oops…. i didnt mention my id. :)

ajmalahmedfarooqi@gmail.com

# 24. alex on Jul 13, 2007 at 2:34 am

Hey, here’s another one: http://www.aimboo.com
Their widget is not Flash, just HTML code.

# 25. mudassar on Jul 31, 2007 at 2:01 am

i want to chat with out messenger
plz help me

# 26. DARK VI SERDAR on Sep 04, 2007 at 12:02 pm

First Off All,Hello
This Site Wonderfull Because,Msn PLUGOO On site :-)
I m Turksh and I m Helping to you

# 27. Bob on Sep 27, 2007 at 7:21 pm

hey

# 28. ljfslfjlfsjfjlfjsdjd on Oct 29, 2007 at 4:42 am

hi hou r u?

did u remember mee?

# 29. Wendy Frenzel on Dec 18, 2007 at 11:55 am

Plugoo does allow for multiple chats at one time but it does change the look and the feel when I had two people wanting to chat with me through Plugoo at the same time. I’ve enjoyed using this product and like that it allows both a widget and a link which can be used in signatures.

# 30. Sriram on Jan 04, 2008 at 5:48 pm

Hi,

I have tried this, but when any one opens my site plugoo shows me offline though I am in Online(in Gtalk). I am not sure where I have done a mistake. Could you please help me

# 31. Sriram on Jan 09, 2008 at 1:57 pm

Looks like its my network problem. Its resolved. I am very happy with this option.

# 32. Bulldog on Apr 04, 2008 at 12:40 pm

Looks like its my network problem. Its resolved. I am very happy with this option——————————–
Could you please let me know what you did to fix this? Some systems show me online and others show me offline, all the same version of flash etc.