FlickIM: Bored Startup Makes Awesome IM for the iPhone

flickimlogo.pngOne of the first things stealth social internet startup Next3 did with their $1.6 million in financing was to buy every employee an iPhone. It made them painfully aware of the poor state of iPhone apps, particularly IM. So naturally, being hackers, they threw together their own in a week, dubbed FlickIM.

FlickIM is an AIM only chat program for iPhone’s Safari browser. It lets you log in to AIM and chat with your existing buddy list with limited lag. From what we saw, it ran about twice as fast as Meebo’s iPhone chat application.

It may be enough just to get AIM on your iPhone, but FlickIM also lets you easily search for and send links to YouTube videos and Apple movie trailers over IM by typing /y or /t before the search term. It pops up a window where you can pick the right video. Since your EDGE connection over AT&T can be spotty, FlickIM will save messages if your friends IM while you’re offline.

Next3 is backed by Peter Theil and Alsop-Louie, and was started by Facebook employee number nine Darian Shirazi with his friend David Mcintosh. They plan to launch their product later this fall.

flickimscreen.png