Archive: Business & Technology

Dr. Digit 'Splains It AllDr. Digit 'Splains It All

E-mail is a great innovation that has made message delivery instantaneous and reasonably reliable.  An even more instantaneous way of communicating is Instant Messaging (IM), which allows users to type to each other over the Internet in real time.  IMs are a one to one medium in which two people can have a conversation.  They differ from on-line chat rooms in which many people can converse at once, with all members of the conversation able to see what the others are saying.

Instant messaging exploded on the scene in 1996 when Mirablis introduced the free ICQ ("I Seek You") software.  Anybody could download the software and immediately begin chatting with others located anywhere in the world.  Soon after that America Online introduced their own instant messaging for their members.  AOL's more than 20 million members could now communicate with anyone in  the world, including non-AOL users who set up AOL's free AIM ("AOL Instant Messenger") software.  This made AOL's IM protocol the most popular on the Internet.  Other IM utilities include Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger.

IM utilities are based on what AOL calls a "buddy list."   This is a window containing the IM names of people you know that shows when they are on-line.  Clicking on a name pops up a window that shows what you and the other person has typed, plus a field in which you type new messages.  Modern IM clients have other capabilities as well that can include voice communication, video conferencing, the ability to move a one-on-one conversation to a chat room where others can join in, file sharing and more.

Each of these IM programs can talk to other people using the same program, but can't for the most part talk to people using a different program.  That's where Trillian comes in.  Named for a character in Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Trillian aggregates Internet Relay Chat (IRC), AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger and ICQ into one program.  In order to use it you need to set up accounts on all the services, but once that is done Trillian has one buddy list with everybody in it and a single interface.

Most of the people I IM with are on AIM, but I have a few colleagues on ICQ, one on MSN Messenger and a few on Yahoo!.  I use Trillian to keep my computer desk top clear -- it would be annoying to run individual programs for each service, yet I like the convenience of being able to access them all in one interface.  In fact using the single interface means I only have to learn IMing once.  I have to admit I don't even know what the current ICQ, Yahoo! or MSN Messenger screens look like.  I just keep updating Trillian and don't worry about it.

Since I am in a home office by myself much of the time IMs serve as my "water cooler."  I can see who is working on their computers and can send and receive messages whenever I want to.  This came in handy a few weeks ago when something went wrong on my Web site and an acquaintance instantly let me know about the problem. 

Instant message clients can be personalized with special icons that represent you (mine is a picture of me), and the ability to set fonts, colors "wallpaper" and more.  All the services have ways to search for people with similar interests.  In fact this morning when I checked the ICQ site for this article they had a story posted about a couple who met via ICQ and got married.

It just goes to show:  people like to talk to each other.  Or tap to each other... or type to each other.

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