COM 125 Week 2: Instant Messaging

What do you do when you wake up in the middle of the night, suddenly recalling that there is something extremely important that you have forgotten to do, and the fact that it is a group work does not help at all? Decades ago, people would have to resort to calling each other (remember those old school telephones?) and gather at someone’s place in the wee hours to finish the job. Such a hassle has since been eliminated with the development of technology. What we do now, is to log on to MSN or Yahoo! Messenger, or even ICQ for some of the more hardcore users, have the work done and send it over to other people instantly without having to leave home. Such is the magic of Instant Messaging technology.

Instant Messaging or IM is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet. [Instant Messaging, 2006] A lot of people may not know this, but Instant Messaging is in fact a not-so-new technology which first made its appearance back in 1970s. It was a feature that mainly functions on operating systems such as UNIX, which was designed for programmers of interactive computers who needed to be able to build tools for each other, share those tools, and propagate successful throughout the programmer community. (Rheingold, 1993) The earliest form of IM was a text-only platform resembling the MS DOS black-and-white format.


ICQ users would find this familiar as this particular platform is still being used in the classic versions of ICQ. Some of these IM tools require users to get connected through a variety of servers, like in the case of IRC. With the development of Graphic User Interface (GUI), IM has become really fanciful and the fun factor has since become yet another selling point for it. Users can now display icons and pictures as an enhancement to the way they can express themselves. The use of different skins and wallpapers in customizing their own user interface has also been made possible. As years go by and technology advances, what began as merely a text-only channel of instant communication has now evolved to a versatile and highly interactive tool. The peer-to-peer connection between users have now allowed file-sharing to be done, and voice chat as well as video conference have been added to its feature, making IM now an all-in-one function.



The key importance in the function of IM is not only the convenience it has created for people, but more importantly, the fact that the ongoing communication between users is real-time. This is a very important development as far as Internet technology is concerned, and it has truly revolutionized how Internet is being used by people like us. Back during the days when E-mail was still the main mode (it still is today, although its prominence has significantly dropped ever since IM became popular) of long distance communication, there is a time lag in information flow that we had to deal with. Not to mention that in cases whereby vital information was sent to the wrong address or for some other reason did not reach the receiver, it could actually cause a lot of unnecessary trouble. The existence of IM has eliminated this problem almost entirely, with instant information access strictly kept between the senders and receivers involved. In a way, we can also say that information security is pretty much insured. Time lag in online communication has always been a concern to a lot of people, especially in the business world where time is money and information flow need to be as swift as possible. Especially when it comes to global business or even international communication itself, the presence of time difference in different parts of the world is another barrier to prompt reception of important information. IM has provided us a way to bypass all these problems and get our messages and information across to the recipient just in time, even more so for emergency situations like the example shown in the first paragraph.

Another key concept behind IM is networking, which is basically the biggest aspect as far as the Internet is concerned. The revolution of IM has also brought about the surfacing of not-so-instant networking tools allowing people not only to connect with their friends or families, but also to make new friends and build a whole new network that might not have existed previously. I am talking about social networking websites [History…, 2006] like Friendster, MySpace, Xanga, Hi5, Facebook, and many more sites of such nature. Back in the earlier days people make new friends through online chatrooms; something pioneered by IRC which was very popular back in 1990s.


Strangers logged onto the same servers will make friends, some of them go on developing a more in-dept interpersonal relationship and become “real friends”. Such is the concept behind networking sites like Friendster and MySpace – to get friends connected to each other, make new ones and build a wider network. With this particular development, Internet is no longer just a wide source of information and a tool to get messages across between users. It has since become a virtual space that caters to more personal needs of the users.

One would have realized by now how far IM technology has taken us as far as the use of Internet is concerned. From a network built for the purpose of disseminating information without it being able to be physically destroyed, to an interpersonal tool that connects people, shrinking the globe and bringing people closer to one another. It has since become a part of (almost) everyone’s daily life. And as time goes by, we are bound to witness more revolutions that will change the way Internet is being used.



REFERENCES:

History of the World Wide Web. (2006, September 5). History of the World Wide Web. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_World_Wide_Web&oldid=73974490


Instant Messaging. (2006). Instant Messaging. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging


Rheingold, H. (1993). Visionaries and Convergences: The Accidental History of the Net. The Virtual Community. New York: Perseus Books. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/3.html