Instant messaging

Instant messaging is the act of instantly communicating between two or more people over a network such as the Internet.

Overview

Instant messaging requires the use of a client program that hooks up an instant messaging service and differs from e-mail in that conversations are then able to happen in realtime. Most services offer a "presence awareness" feature, indicating whether people on one's list of contacts are currently online and available to chat. This may be called a 'Buddy List'. In early instant messaging programs, each letter appeared as it was typed, and when letters were deleted to correct typos this was also seen in real time. This made it more like a telephone conversation than exchanging letters. In modern instant messenging programs, the other party in the conversation generally only sees each line of text right after a new line is started. Most instant messaging applications also include the ability to set a status message, roughly analogous to the message on a telephone answering machine.

Related Topics:
Client program - E-mail - Realtime - Presence awareness - Buddy List - Status message

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Popular instant messaging services on the public Internet include MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, .NET Messenger Service, Jabber and ICQ. These services owe many ideas to an older (and still popular) online chat medium known as Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

Related Topics:
MSN Messenger - AOL Instant Messenger - Yahoo! Messenger - Google Talk - .NET Messenger Service - Jabber - ICQ - Online chat - Internet Relay Chat

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ANd now Trini

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Chat

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History

An early form of instant messaging was implemented on the PLATO system in the early 1970s. Later the UNIX/LINUX "talk" instant messaging system was widely used by engineers and academics in the 1980s and 1990s to communicate across the internet. ICQ was the first general instant messenger introduced for non-UNIX/LINUX computers in November 1996. After its introduction, a number of variations of instant messaging have arisen in parallel in many places, each with its own protocol. This has led to users running many instant messaging applications simultaneously to be available on several networks. Alternatively they could use a client which supports many protocols, such as Gaim, Trillian or Jabber clients.

Related Topics:
PLATO - Talk - ICQ - November - 1996 - Protocol - Gaim - Trillian - Jabber

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Recently, many instant messaging services have begun to offer video conferencing features, Voice Over IP (VoIP), and web conferencing services have begun to integrate both video conferencing and instant messaging capabilities. Hence, the boundaries among these media have become blurred.

Related Topics:
Video conferencing - VoIP - Web conferencing

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On December 19, 2002, AOL Time Warner announced that ICQ had been issued a United States patent for instant messaging, but they also said that they had no plans on enforcing their patent at the present time.

Related Topics:
December 19 - 2002 - AOL Time Warner - United States - Patent

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The term "instant messenger" is a Service Mark of AOL Time Warner and may not be used in software not affiliated with AOL. For this reason, the instant messaging client formerly known as GAIM or gAIM is now only to be referred to as Gaim or gaim.

Related Topics:
Service Mark - AOL Time Warner - Gaim

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