INSTANT MESSAGING

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INSTANT MESSAGING CIS 456 JOSHUA HARCLERODE
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Instant Messaging Presentation - CIS 456

• Quick History
• IM Wars
• How Does It work?
• Growth of IM
• Future Trends

• What Is IM?
• IM Features
• How Is It Useful?
• Interaction
• Outeraction

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Instant Messaging Presentation - CIS 456

• WHAT IS INSTANT MESSAGING?
• IM is exactly what it sounds like - a service
  that uses near synchronous one-to-one text
  messaging. It has become popular form of
  communication for both home and work users.

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IM Features
Instant Messaging Presentation - CIS 456

• Instant Messages
• Chat
• Web links
• Images
• Sounds
• Files
• Talk
• Streaming content

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• HOW IS INSTANT MESSAGING USEFUL?
• GENERALLY
• Allows informal conversation
• Establishes contact
• Immediacy
• Keeps in touch with family and friends
• OTHER USES SPECIFICALLY IN THE WORKPLACE
• Supports quick questions and clarifications
  about ongoing tasks
• Coordination and scheduling
• An alternate channel for exchange of textual
  information
• Coordinate impromptu social meetings

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• INTERACTION
• IM is interactive because it is NEAR
  SYNCHRONOUS
• IM interaction is INFORMAL
• IM interaction is FLEXIBLE
• Clarifications Social favors
• Coordination Tracking schedules
• Task delegation Arranging meetings
• IM interaction is EXPRESSIVE
• Work crisis
• General ambiance of the office
• Jokes and bantering
• Intimate communication with family and friends

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• OUTERACTION
• Outeraction aspects of communication affect media
  choice and patterns of media use
• Outeraction is a set of communicative processes
  outside of information exchange, in which people
  reach out to others in patently social ways to
  enable information exchange
• Key Aspects
• Media switching and awareness moments
• Creation of communication zones

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HOW IM WORKS ?
Peer-to-peer
Centralized network
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Quick History

• ICQ introduced November 1996
• Mirablis (Tel Aviv)
• AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) May 1997
• AOL acquired ICQ mid-1998 for 287 million
• Yahoo!Pager March 1998
• MSN Messenger in JULY 1999

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IM Wars

• IM battle over "open access"
• AOL vs. MSN and IMUnified
• ATT Corp., Excite_at_Home, Microsoft, Odigo Inc.,
  Phone.com Inc., Prodigy Services Corp., Yahoo
  Inc. and iCast Corp.
• Backdoor approaches AOL, and hacking
• Currently Trillian (Cerulean Studios) using this
  approach
• IETF and the IMPPWG
• (Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol Working
  Group)

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Growth of IM

• Study by Jupiter Media Matrix
• September 2000 to September 2001
• At Home
• AOL 41.7 million unique users, up 21
• MSN 18.5 million, up 94
• Yahoo! 11.9 million, up 25
• At Work
• AOL 8.8 million unique users, up 17
• MSN 4.8 million, up 88
• Yahoo! 3.4 million, up 83

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Instant Messaging Presentation - CIS 456

• FUTURE OF INSTANT MESSAGING
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• Wireless, wireless, and some more wireless
• Cell phone giants to promote wireless IM
• MSN Messenger Genie
• AOL Sprint
• Nokia
• Evolved internet-based communications
• Instant Messaging Standard Protocol???

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C U L8r ?