Instant Messenger is Not Your Enemy
Elliott Masie,
IT Training,
Apr 02, 2002
In this article, Elliott Masie discovers instant messaging. Some useful statistics ("8.8 million AOL IM users, 4.8 million MSN IM users and 3.4 million Yahoo! IM users") and background. Not mentioned in the survey is ICQ, the grand-daddy of instant messaging (since ICQ is now owned by AOL it may be lumped in with AOL-IM, above, but it is important to keep in mind that AOL-IM and ICQ are completely separate services). I have used ICQ for many years - my ICQ number is 1287181 for those of you who wish to give me a toodle (though keep in mind that IM is best used for quick, short chats... hint hint). Anyhow. Masie's column reads a bit off-the-cuff. For example: instant messaging is essentially stand-alone, so it doesn't matter whether it integrates with other enterprise software, contra Masie. Additionally, I would really bother spending a whole lot of time discussing "appropriate uses" - instant messaging is more like the quick conversation in the hall than it is like something even semi-serious, like email. Also, instant messaging now connects with SMS, meaning that you can use ICQ (for example) to send an SMS to someone's cell phone. Finally, Masie really should have addressed the perplexing problem of IM-spam. All of that said: for me, the best use of ICQ is to send quick messages to my wife when I'm in the office or out of the country. It's an easy way to have a quick back-and-forth chat. Don't treat it as anything more serious (or mission critical) than that. It's a great tool, but if you formalize it, you kill it.
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