Former Google Employee launches Instant Messenger Imo.im

Imo.im is a web startup founded and funded by ten of the first Google employees.

Based out of Palo Alto California, its mission is simple, easy and feature packed IM/voice/video communication through your existing social and IM accounts.

It supports all the usual instant messengers such as AIM, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ, MSN, MySpace, Facebook Chat and Yahoo Messenger, but they also have one other network that is actually quite a surprise, Skype (without a download!).

One of imo.im’s key features is their chat history search, I had a chance to test this feature out earlier today and found it speedier and more efficient then experiences with similar web apps.

This is not the usual Ctrl-F search method, after each letter entered in the search bar, imo.im jumps to the first appearance without having to click that pesky next button, and coupled with a handy month/day calendar on the left for easy date selection imo.im surely has one of the most original chat history search engines around.

Imo.im also includes 2 other different but very functional features, white board and photos. The whiteboard is your usual whiteboard similar to FlockDraw, but a little more barebones and of course has a link that can be shared with friends via IM or email. Photos are now a synch to share with friends using imo.im’s built in photo uploader with 2gb’s of free storage and ability to see your other friends photo feed if they also use imo.im.

Overall imo.im’s UI is one of the simplest that I have ever seen, no large graphics or even ad’s. As imo.im rolls out of alpha I imagine that it will really start to grow on consumers looking for a dead simple solution for their IM and communication needs. This is going to be just one of the many successful startups created by infamous former Google employees.