Instant Messaging

[pakman]

The primary benefit of instant messaging programs is that your friends now have electronic evidence of how drunk you were the previous night.

I know that all to well, Mithrandir.

Besides knowing how drunk I was, I have AIM running all the time along with IRC. I only started using AIM when I was a freshman in college four years ago so I could talk to my parents. However, I don't use the latest versions of AIM because they are all chock full of crap and annoyances. I use an oooollld version where I can install DeadAIM and get rid of the junk I don't want (like the stock ticker and ads at the top and bottom), and I set up transparency, etc. You can get the older version of programs at http://www.oldversion.com. I'm also one of those people that if you get ahold of me by AIM you're lucky; I don't actually talk to people on AIM that much although I have it running all the time. One never knows if I'm at my pc or not because I rarely put up an away message. You're better off (now at least) getting me on my cell phone, which I just gave in to buying, or emailing me. It's only really a convenience if you want to leave me a short message.

There are people I know that have over a hundred people on their AIM lists. I am not one of them. I regularly go through and delete people I don't talk to often enough to be on my list, about every 4 months.

If you wanted to do VOIP, then I would suggest getting Skype. It's a program that does chat and voice and is free unless you want to pay for a service in which you pay something like $0.02/minute for an actual phone using your internet connection.