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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 information feature, indicating
whether people on one's list of contacts are currently online and
available to chat. This may be called a contact 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 messaging 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.
Popular instant messaging services on the public Internet include Qnext,
MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Skype, Google
Talk, .NET Messenger Service, Jabber, QQ, iChat and ICQ. These services
owe many ideas to an older (and still popular) online chat medium known
as Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
In early instant messaging programs each character appeared as it was
typed. The UNIX "talk" command shown in these screenshots was popular in
the 1980s and early 1990s.
Benefits Instant messaging typically boosts communication
and allows easy collaboration. In contrast to e-mails or phone, the
parties know whether the peer is available. Most systems allow the user
to set an online status or away message so peers get notified whenever
the user is available, busy, or away from the computer. On the other
hand, people are not forced to reply immediately to incoming messages.
This way, communication via instant messaging can be less intrusive than
communication via phone, which is partly a reason why instant messaging
is becoming more and more important in corporate environments. Also, the
fact that instant messages typically get logged in a local message
history closes the gap to the persistent nature of e-mails, facilitating
quick, safe, and persistent exchange of information such as URLs or
document snippets, which can be unwieldy when done using inappropriate
media such as phone. History
An early and partial form of messaging systems was implemented on
private computer networks such as the PLATO system in the early 1970s.
Later the UNIX/LINUX "talk" messaging systems were widely used by
engineers and academics in the 1980s and 1990s to communicate across the
internet. ICQ was the first general instant messenger combining presence
or list of contacts with the ability to send messages. ICQ was
introduced in November 1996. ICQ was awarded two patents from the U.S.
patent office. 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 Miranda clients.
On single line bulletin board systems (BBS), the system operator (sysop)
and the single caller online could typically chat with one another.
One's typing appeared in real time for the other person as an instant
message equivalent.
Recently, many instant messaging services have begun to offer video
conferencing features, Voice Over IP (VoIP) and web conferencing
services. Web conferencing services integrate both video conferencing
and instant messaging capabilities..
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.
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.
What really characterizes instant messaging from other forms of text
messaging applications is the use of "presence" which enables the user
of an instant messaging applications to rendez-vous with his/her
counterparties and see their status of availability.
Cooperation There have been several attempts to create a
unified standard for instant messaging: IETF's SIP (Session Initiation
Protocol) and SIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging
Extensions), APEX (Application Exchange), Prim (Presence and Instant
Messaging Protocol), the open XML-based XMPP (Extensible Messaging and
Presence Protocol), more commonly known as Jabber and OMA's (Open Mobile
Alliance) IMPS (Instant Messaging and Presence Service) created
specifically for mobile devices.
Most attempts at creating a unified standard for the major IM providers
(AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft) have failed and each continues to use its
own proprietary protocol.
However, while discussions at IETF were stalled, Reuters head of
collaboration services, David Gurle (the founder of Microsoft's Real
Time Communication and Collaboration business), surprised everybody by
signing the first inter-service provider connectivity agreement on
September 2003. This historic agreement enabled AIM, ICQ and MSN
Messenger users to talk with Reuters Messaging counterparts and
vice-versa against an access fee. Following this breakthrough agreement
between networks Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL came to a deal where
Microsoft's Live Communication Server 2005 (which is interestingly also
used by Reuters for its Reuters Messaging service) users would also have
the possibility to talk to public instant messaging users. This deal
settled once for all the protocol for interconnectivity in the market as
SIP/SIMPLE and established a connectivity fee for accessing public
instant messaging clouds. Separately, on October 13, 2005 Microsoft and
Yahoo! announced that by (the Northern Hemisphere) summer of 2006 they
would interoperate using SIP/SIMPLE which is followed on December 2005
by the AOL and Google strategic parternership deal where Google Talk
users would be to talk with AIM and ICQ users provided they have an
identity at AOL.
There are two ways to combine the many disparate protocols:
One way is to combine the many disparate protocols inside the IM client
application. Examples include iChat, Trillian, Gaim, Fire, Proteus,
Miranda IM, Adium, Everybuddy, Ayttm, Kopete, Centericq, BitlBee,
Windows Messenger, and IMVITE.
The other way is to combine the many disparate protocols inside the IM
server application. This approach moves the task of communicating to the
other services to the server. Clients need not know or care about other
IM protocols. For example, LCS 2005 Public IM Connectivity. This
approach is popular in Jabber/XMPP servers however the so-called
transport projects suffer the same reverse engineering difficulties as
any other project involved with closed protocols or formats.
The IMPS standard mentioned earlier is part of a mobile telephone
industry initiative to bring instant messaging to mobile phones. The
Open Mobile Alliance took over the standards, originally called Wireless
Village, in November 2002. There is a free IMPS-based service called
Yamigo which allows instant messaging on mobile phones even if your
carrier doesn't provide its own Wireless Village service. Yamigo acts as
a standalone instant messaging network, but can also integrate with ICQ,
AIM, MSN and Yahoo!. A common misconception is that it also integrates
with Jabber, but it does not yet.
Some approaches, such as that adopted by the Sonork enterprise IM
software or the Jabber/XMPP network or Winpopup LAN Messenger or Softros
LAN Messenger, allow organizations to create their own private instant
messaging network by enabling them to limit access to the server (often
with the IM network entirely behind their firewall) and administer user
permissions. Other corporate messaging systems, like the Medianet
Innovations MIC, allow registered users to also connect from outside the
corporation LAN, by using a secure firewall-friendly HTTPS based
protocol. Typically, a dedicated corporate IM server has several
advantages such as pre-populated contact lists, integrated
authentication, and better security and privacy.
Some networks have made changes to prevent them from being utilized by
such multi-network IM clients. For example, Trillian had to release
several revisions and patches to allow its users to access the MSN, AOL,
and Yahoo! networks, after changes were made to these networks. The
major IM providers typically cite the need for formal agreements as well
as security concerns as reasons for making these changes. |
