instant messenger with group messaging

toasterman

Hi everyone,
I'm looking for a way of messaging a lot of people at once - but ideally I'd like to have it go through an instant messenger.

An internal network one isn't going to work because the people I want to message are in different locations.

Also, I want every one in the group to be able to message everyone else in the group and have it pop up on their screen.

To complicate things further, I'd rather have it so everyone joins the 'group'. and they get accepted/denied by me/another admin.
If one person joins, I don't want every one in the group to have to add/accept them individually.

MSN doesn't seem to support this - anyone know if theres another instant messenger service that does?
It could be done by email but as the group grows we might get issues with ISPs thinking we're spamming - plus I'd rather have it work with a messenger service of some kind so they get it instantly without having to check their mail.
It could be done by a kind of instant-refreshing web page tagboard, but then its not in front of them again.
There's probably mobile phone versions of this but text messaging isn't always instant, and the additional cost is outside the budget.

Any ideas anyone?

rmg1

Two quick questions.
Do you all work for the same company?
Are you all on a LAN/WAN?

toasterman

rmg1 wrote: »

Two quick questions.
Do you all work for the same company?
Are you all on a LAN/WAN?

For the purposes of this, we all work together yes. Everyone will be able to message everyone, but only those people accepted should be able to communicate with any.
The users won't need to talk to anyone outside of the selected group of people, so it doesn't matter if its an obscure messaging client nobody else in the world uses.

As far as LAN/WAN goes, people will be in multiple locations - some on a LAN, some at home, some perhaps connected in a hotel. I can't guarantee the location of anyone at any one time.

I guess its kind of like the old Winpopup thing you could message people with, but with a login and people in separate locations.

Addition: Oh and speech, video conferencing, animated smilies, etc.. none of that is required. Just text communication between members of group, and if people are offline when messages are sent groupwide - they don't need to receive it when they log in. They could do, but its not really required.

rmg1

I have an Excel spreadsheet that can be sent to selected people. Anyone can receive the message, provided they are hooked in to the relevant network.
I could simply add a list of nominated users which could be governed by an Admin password and all you'll need to know is the Windows logon name of the person you're messagin. it is text only and we use it frequently.
PM me your e-mail address and I'll send over a copy "as-is" so you can test it. I can then make the changes if necessary.

Ramz_3

im not sure, but ICQ might be able to do what you want

Crispy_Ambulance

You can invite people to a conference on YIM and I guess on other IM software. They have to accept the invitation though, so it wouldn't work if they were offline.

toasterman

Thanks for replies so far.

Having to accept an invitation wouldn't work so well, because every new person to login would have to be added by someone...and people will come online at different times.

I had a look at ICQ but couldn't see it would be any better than Yahoo, MSN, etc...for what I'm thinking.

It might be possible with "Jabber" - that I was looking at yesterday. Just run a Jabber server and only give the necessary people login details. Group messaging might be possible - I've not looked that far into it.

I'll PM you rmg1, as I've not a clue what you mean.
Windows logon name? Does that require them all to be on the same lan?

And thanks for the PM sra.

rmg1

I've just replied to your PM and dropped you an e-mail as well.