Getting the Basics of Instant Messaging

Jan. 12 -- Instant Messaging is on the fast track to becoming the latest killer app for Internet technology.

A cross between e-mail, Internet chats and beepers — with a smidgen of Napster and telephone technology thrown in — an instant messaging program lets you exchange text messages with people using the same program. At least, that was its traditional calling.

These days, IM programs are adding more bells and whistles that allow you to trade files such as MP3s, the popular format for digital music, with your “buddies.” Some let you send voice messages. And others can even communicate with competitors’ programs — despite some efforts by industry heavyweights to block this.

An Open Question

For the most part, though, IM programs don’t work with their competitors’ programs. So if you have the popular AOL IM, or AIM, while your best friend has Yahoo! Messenger, the two of you can’t talk IM to each other unless one of you gets the other’s service.

While this wouldn’t be convenient, it’s not difficult either; for now, at least, instant messaging programs are downloadable for free. But as the technology advances, the lack of cross-platform communication could be problematic, setting an anti-competitive stage.

This is one reason the Federal Communications Commission, in its role as a communications regulator, stipulated that AOL open its instant messaging service in approving the AOL-Time Warner merger.

Imagine being unable to call a Verizon user from your Nextel phone, or being unable to e-mail your Qualcomm Eudora software to someone using the Microsoft Outlook program.

Real-Time Conversation Piece

About half of the online population dips into IM mode once a week, up about 13 percent from the previous year, estimates Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research. In an age where speed is everything, the beautiful thing about instant messaging is regardless of how fast — or slow — your modem is, IMing is virtually immediate. It’s not as real-time as a phone conversation, but it leaves e-mail in the dust.