Talk:Instant messaging
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sed its IM as beta: http://www.google.com/talk --[[User:Bverveen|
- An instant messenger is a computer application which allows instant text communication through a network such as the Internet. In contrast with IRC, communication is usually one-to-one.
lynX says: "I find this definition not very effective, since even IRC has "buddy list" features in form of /notify and /query and it is only a question of user interface to present them in a buddy list style. And if you remove all systems, that have the ability to do multi-user rooms, then you would have to remove jabber. Alright, we could define real chat systems to be those instant messaging systems which have the ability to really multicast room conversation instead of just sending a copy of a message to every recipient. This would throw ICQ and jabber out and leave IRC, gale and PSYC as the only true chatsystems which do not just do instant messaging. So.. what do we do?"
- Instant messaging is the act of instantly communicating between two or more people over a network such as the Internet.
As the lead sentence to the article and a provisional definition of ". Perhaps these should be excluded from the focus of this article, which is mostly a discussion of the "text" instant messaging function.
[edit] Sentence fragment
I don't get this part:
The count: MSN-- this needs better writing. --joeclark
[edit] Unix "talk" command
Does the infamous "talk" command (perhaps in combination with "finger") of pre-web internet fame meet these criteria? If not, in what sense is talk not an instant messenger?
- I guess it is one. I rattled off that definition to bring together the existing pages on AOL IM, Jabber and ICQ. --Tarquin
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- talk isn't just one-on-one, the most relevant point is that talk is bound to a specific machine whereas messaging clients can be run anywhere. So one could argue talk(1) is more a peer to peer conversation application than an instant messanger. How does rwall(1) fit into this? Is it a multicast chat system just because it delivers a message to all users in a unix LAN? Not exactly. --lynX
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- Ventura says: "While "talk" was limited to a single machine, there were variants like "ntalk" and "ytalk" that were not limited in that way. I remember using ntalk to have online chats with friends at different universities. I agree that the ?talk programs were peer-to-peer."
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- Looking at it again I must say that talk/finger and BITNET MSG both did exactly the job that instant messaging does today. The reason why it worked was because people were always at the same IP addresses (or hosts in the case of BITNET). The fact this changed didn't change the application but the technological way to implement it. Here's a proposal for a new paragraph opening up for History ...
In the 1980s the BITNET had an instant messaging function called MSG. It allowed to send a message to remote users. The NAMES facility would allow to assign nicknames to people and also a function to poll the presence of a person was available.
When the Internet came along, these functions were recreated in form of the Unix commands talk and finger. The functionality was essentially still the same, only as the Internet developed users stopped using the same IP addresses each time they were online. This made such an approach defective.
Many people then took it to e-mail, others moved to the Internet Relay Chat. Several years passed before a small company in Israel started a service called ICQ.
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- So, do you like it? Opinions? Edits? --lynX 17:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] As it is typed
From the article:
- Generally, both parties in the conversation see each sentence (or part of a sentence) as it is typed, thus making it more like a telephone conversation than exchanging letters.
The ones I know (AOL, yahoo, IM) only send a line once the user sends it. (RETURN for some apps, AOL can send linebreaks). This seems to say that it is sent letter by letter (like the fictional apps seen in films). --Tarquin
- Good point. I've adjusted the article accordingly --RobLa
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- Chat mode in ICQ does work like that, the letters appear as they are typed. --Anon
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- Yes, it is sent letter-by-letter, as shown by "Your buddy is typing" and other nonsense on AIM. --mythrandir 17:53. 24 Dec 2003 (EST)
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to exploit this and allow you to see what your friend is typing prematurely. This feature is intentionally not included, probably for privacy purposes. (e.g. you can backspace that lewd message you accidentally typed to your mother before it's too late) --Greggae
[edit] This article calls it instant messenger but other articles name differently
This article calls this kind of software instant messenger, but the articles on the great 4 instant messengers call it by 3 different names! Time for some copyediting, maybe I'll do it. But maybe someone else will do it before me. Thanx in advance if you're gonna correct it. By the way, maybe it's good to look on the official websites of the great 4 instant messengers to see how they call their program (if they say how such programs are called generically). instant messenger
also the list of clients is a mess -- maybe they should be seperated off this page?
[edit] Title
A sentencemessaging", which of course is the act of using an IM client to talk to people, should be the title of the page and should appear in the introductory line. Change the page name? --Chris Wood 4 July 2005 19:18 (UTC)
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- Obviously, this article isn't a software. Service marks, as well as trade marks, work only in specified context.
[edit] User Base
What is the 'User Base' section is based upon? I think that ICQ has much more active users than 6M (but i have no way to verify that)
- Yes, there is something wrong with how this is counted. Skype peaking at 8 million users logged in at the same time is not directly comparable to 54 million active user on AIM. These numbers are outdated numbers, but it was probably more accurate (at the time) than the list on here. Bufflo 18:23, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Something wrong in this sentence
Recently, many instant messaging services have begun to offer video conferencing features, Voice Over IP (VoIP), and web
[edit] Gotta mention meebo!
Whenever one of my "AIM kiddie" cousins use my laptop in my car (I got EVDO) and wanna chit-chat with their friends, I have them quickly log-into their account from the web - www.meebo.com -- I think it's the most known site for multi-client web-based chatting.
Advantages are obvious: - no need to junk my pc with temp software - quick - bypass install restrictions say on library/internet cafe pc's
Whatcha smart fellows think?
Meebo now added to User base list. -- Ashley VH 11:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] History
Not sure if it is relevant, but there was a User Interface writen and in use across the Coventry Poly mainframe network in 1985, called Newt, it had lots of the features you see now, screen names in particular. It was writen in Fortran 77 and run on the Harris mainframe system and accounted for a lot a wasted time amoung its users, me included.
[edit] Away Message Book
It's the first of it's kind seems a bit relevant to the pop culture of instant messages.
http://www.amazon.com/Where-Theres-Will-Away-Messages/dp/0595394914/sr=1-1/qid=1161790710/ref=sr_1_1/002-6136723-1336849?ie=UTF8&s=books 208.252.49.130 15:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)badfishstan
[edit] Decentralized??
Funny emphasis we have there on DHT-based decentralized systems. What about XMPP, PSYC and SIMPLE? They are all decentralized, too. Even IRC. Just because every user has a home server doesn't mean they aren't decentralized. So what you mean is a serverless IM system? Well, a DHT still runs on servers and somebody owns them. So what is a DHT-based IM system other than just a DHT-based IM system with its pros and cons? (Example of cons: How do you avoid somebody knowing your IP and presence once you've given them your public key? How do you find out about the public key in the first place, via a centralized key facility?) --SymlynX 01:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] User Base - change to table?
I was just wondering - might it be better for this information to be displayed in a table? I found it really difficult trying to read the list of instant messengers - does anyone else feel the same? Maybe it's just me...
I checked "Wikipedia:When_to_use_tables", and it does say "Try not to use tables for putting a caption under a photograph, arranging a group of links, or other strictly visual features." I'm not sure if this is one of those times.
Or maybe it would be better organising this by date (I haven't a clue how to do that, though).
Otherwise I think I should be able to live with it - and - it might be easier to edit in list format.
Here's an example table:
| Name | Active users | Peak users | Total users |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yahoo! Messenger | 22 million users (9/27/06) | ||
| AIM | 53 million active (9/27/06) | 195 million total (January 2003) | |
| Windows Live Messenger | 27 million active (9/27/06) | 155 million total (April 2005) | |
| ICQ | 4 million active (9/27/06) | ||
| 221 million "active"[1] | 20 million peak online users | ||
| Skype | 8 million peak online (August 2006) | 100 million total (April 2006) | |
| Paltalk | 3.3 million unique visitors per month (August 2006) | ||
| Jabber | 40-50 million users; large error margin because of unpublished user counts for Google Talk (October 2006) | ||
| Ebuddy | 35 million users (including 4 million mobile) (October 2006) | ||
| Sametime | 15 million (enterprise) users | ||
| xFire | 6,049,556 users | ||
| Gadu-Gadu | 5.6 million users (June 2006) | ||
| MXit | 2 million users (majority in South Africa, more than 150,000 international) (October 2006) | ||
| Meebo | 0.67 million users (October 2006) |
--rjcuk 21:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
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- I agree table will better. And whith it we can easy compare sizes of IM-networks without messing up with active/total/peak numbers.
- By the way, there is something wrong with QQ'a numbers --Artem a 04:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Locked. TODO
Little TODO List of things while the page is locked.
- The line where MXit is mentioned ends in a typo: 'nework'
