[Air-l] What is Instant Messaging

[Quentin (Gad) Jones]

jeremy hunsinger wrote:
> a problem is that online awareness is the unix command who

A who command is totally different to having a series of names 
constantly displayed with different colours and icons to signify status. 
  There is a huge amount of HCI research to support this as a 
fundamental difference.

, the buddy
> list is part of a shell script with your user names, messaging is talk  
> or irc, 

Messaging linked to status on a buddy list is totally different to 
having to put in a name of somebody that you have first had to who to 
see if they will chat by opening up a chat window.  Going to an IRC 
server is even further from this.

Quentin

>> ******************
>> The U.S. patent office has approved the ICQ inventors' patent on their
>> technology for instant messaging via the Internet, HA'ARETZ reported.
>> The office also granted a patent on the entrepreneurs' technology for
>> the transmission of instant messages over cellular networks. America
>> Online, which bought ICQ with its owner Mirabilis in 1998 for $400
>> million, can file patent infringement suits against Yahoo! and Microsoft
>> which develop and market similar software for the transmission of
>> instant messages, or, alternatively, can demand the companies pay
>> royalties. An estimated 400 million people worldwide use instant
>> messaging, about 135 million of them ICQ users.
>> ******************
>>
>> While the patent office often gets things wrong (e.g. the hoo ha about
>> Amazon.com's one click patent) this approval does suggest that
>> IM=(online awareness + buddy list + over TCP/IP protocal + messaging)
>> and is something relatively new.
>>
>> Quentin
>>
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>>
> jeremy hunsinger
> jhuns at vt.edu
> on the ibook
> www.cddc.vt.edu
> www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy
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