Web-based IM That “Sticks” to Desktop

I’m not a heavy IM user anymore, so not sure Velvet Puffin’s Web-based instant messaging service will really take off the way that R. Chandrasekar is hoping it will (most of my IM traffic has gone to Twitter or Pownce) but it did do something worthy of note: You sign in with your Web browser and you get an IM client that looks like it’s part of the Web page.

Close the browser, though, and the IM client sticks around.

This is the kind of “rich Internet application” that I’d expect to see tons of next year after Adobe’s AIR and Microsoft’s Silverlight get better understood (and get finished). Already Pownce has an Adobe AIR version that’s looks similar to an IM client. Anyway, I have an interview with R. Chandrasekar, CEO of Velvet Puffin, and he gives me a demo, too, which I’ll embed here for your viewing pleasure. He came to see me from Singapore, so we met in a restaurant near SFOs airport. Sorry if it’s a little noisy there.

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