TheGreatHatsby looks to start conversations between two random people through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). The Bot hides its identity by changing all instances of the user’s names into it’s own name. So if you see a chat log of the conversation every time a user mentioned his/her screen name the Bot would change it to the Bot’s name.

I do not know who started this, or who created the bot. The wikipedia entry which I found randomly (and luckily) lists two websites where you can find more information. The sites seem to be more of a collection of theories more than actual answer sheets. I honestly think this is quite annoying personally, but I could see it’s use specially since I’ve been wanting to write a post regarding Tworl and meeting random people through AIM like in the days of ICQ.

You can recognize the Bot by having names that are <adjective>Trout, <adjective>Salmon or <adjective>Coho.

You can stop the messages by typing:

$optout

Then it will respond with:

OPERATOR: Are you sure you want to opt-out? If you do, you will *never* be contacted again on the account “<screenname>”. There is *no way* to opt back in and undo this.
If you are sure, type “$optout DADD”. Remember, this is permanent and irreversible!

Type what it asks:

$optout DADD

And you will recieve one final (hopefully) message:

OPERATOR: You have opted out. The account “<screnname>” will *never* be contacted again. Good bye!

Some friends of mine refuse to leave MSN, while others are completely against leaving AIM ( this includes .Mac since it is the same thing). So it was Trillian for me while I was using Windows. File transfers there were hit or miss. That was fine. I switched to Mac and immediately started using Adium. As my life progressed however, I have become dependent on IM for my everyday communications. Adium’s file transfer capabilities are just horrible and it really got to me. I had to stop. I switched to iChat.

I use Chax with my iChat and I also have MSN on my iChat, those are the two big ones and thats all I really need since most of my current contacts use AIM and not anything else. This brings me to a different problem, however. My AIM name is my personal and my business name.

That is why I wish AIM’s folders meant something. As you can see above, I have all these random folders that I didnt even create. I can make a work folder and I can make a personal folder but in the end, they both behave the same. If I am online, I am online to all those people, I wish I could set myself offline to my Buddies, but not to my ‘Web Life’ contacts. I wish I could do that for everyone, like what would happen if I am listening to Peaches and I have iTunes forwarding the currently playing song to my iChat list? Bad things indeed. The separation would mean that you can have two personalities, two different ways of being while still keeping yourself in one place. One profile different uses.

With this said, why isn’t any of these start-ups creating a nice Jabber based network that follows standards and allows for this kind of flexibility? There’s already a billion Twitter-like services and AIM / MSN  integration is well documented by now, file-transfers being possible if you really put muscle behind it. Ask Cerulean Studios, they seem to have a wealth of knowledge in the subject with mixed success and should help in the process.

Just thought I’d share my frustrations.