Beejive IM – the multitasking majesty

Alright. For a long time now, there’s been one king of IM apps on my iTouch, and thats AIM. But now send out the heralds: the new king has arisen! Beejive IM! There are a few things that set aside Beejive from AIM, including Facebook’s built in chat, Google Talk’s Safari web app, and a host of others. The main difference is that Beejive not only boasts push notification, which keeps you logged onto an account (AIM also now does this), but it allows you to go and log into all your accounts from all your places at once (something AIM only let’s you do with only your screenname). And if you’re on an iPhone, this morphs into being socially connected anytime, anywhere, to everyone. Pretty sweet in other words, especially for us teens.

Speaking of different accounts, that’s where Beejive really delivers, supporting the incredible list below: AIM/Mobile Me, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN/Windows Live, MySpace IM, Yahoo Messenger, and even Facebook Chat. And thats the main reason why it takes the IM spot on my iPod– the amount of compatibility makes it incredibly useful. Once you add your accounts to Beejive you can access them through a buddy list, like in AIM, as well as view open chats and set favorites. Also, the option to view individual buddy lists for each account is also there, which is useful if you only need to find some friends on AOL, but want to stay logged in on your other accounts.

However, there is a catch, likely to deter some readers. Beejive, unlike AIM– which is either free with ads or $2.99 for a no ad version– is a paid app costing $10. However, for those of you who always want to be in the loop on all your accounts, I feel that it’s a fair price to pay for it. Overall though, I really like Beejive, even despite the price tag, and rate it a 5/5.

Interested? Check it out here (warning: link opens iTunes)