[Air-l] What is Instant Messaging

[Karim R. Lakhani]

> Amazing that people have such problems with the concept of Instant 
> messaging.  The MIT system did not have a buddy system linked to 
> personal awareness status that could be moved from computer account to 
> computer account.  IT WAS NOT IM!
> 
> Quentin

ermmm....I started using Zephyr @ MIT when I arrived here for my Masters 
in Fall of 1997. It allowed me to stay in touch with all of my school 
"buddies" on the network on "any" machine on which I was logged onto 
(both private and public).  I could see who was online and who was not, 
it announced when users of interest logged on etc.  I started using ICQ 
in the Summer of 1998 and saw it as Zephyr on Steroids living in the 
Windows Internet World.  It became a great way for me to stay in touch 
with my non-Unix buddies and my Mom! (later on my Mom sending me IM's in 
the middle of presentations).

I frankly did not see much difference between what Zephyr could do on 
Project Athena at MIT and ICQ for Windows.

Best,


K


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Karim R. Lakhani
MIT Sloan School of Management
MIT Free/Open Source Software Research Project
e-mail: lakhani at mit.edu
voice:  617-851-1224
fax:    617-344-0403
http://opensource.mit.edu
http://freesoftware.mit.edu
http://mit.edu/lakhani/www
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