Using IM for Data Transport

Feedster delivered me Burnham's Beat: DIM: Hijacking IM for Data Transport which has a pretty concept: using IM for data transport. Despite the enthusiasm of the author (who happens to be a VC investor in the company he's pimping for) I see some serious drawbacks to this on public networks. First, there's a message throttle, that only x messages can be sent in a certain timeframe, and second, instant replies are a sure way to get tagged as a bot on the network and get kicked off for 10 minutes or so.  About the only advantage it has is that one of the "agents" or sources is accessible from anywhere, and can connect to the internet from anywhere, since name resolution is handled by the IM network itself. Still an interesting idea, although I think web services have all the advantages and none of the disadvantages, at least when it comes to the business world.

A few years ago every DB vendor moved quickly to make SOAP interfaces to their offerings, it would be interesting to see a generic database connector for an IM network, although I doubt it would be very practical. I created  mini-IM-database-admin style app about a year ago as a proof of concept style project, but it was meant for humans to control, not an application.