[Air-l] The death of chat?

salterl l.salter at unl.ac.uk
Thu Sep 25 04:28:59 PDT 2003


On BBC One New in the UK last night, the report began with paedophile issues, 
but swiftly moved to business strategy, highlighting that messaging would be 
replaced by Messenger, which can be sold to other businesses. This absolutely 
breaks the paedophile argument, as Mess. is unmonitored. The full story is 
online at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3136006.stm

>===== Original Message From air-l at aoir.org =====
>Here in Canada, the French CBC radio channel only briefly mentioned the
>news that "...MS has decided that their chat system will not be free
>anymore". So the emphasis is put on the business strategy.
>
>I havent' had time to read MS press release yet, but I would go in the J.
>Sternberg's sense and say that definitely, MSN does not equal chat, that
>IRC is still expanding, and that numerous chat applications are florishing.
>
>Chat, as a practice, has never been so ubiquitous, going beyond personal
>computers towards cellphones. It is even giving birth to new language
>varieties. It's not only a specific, fast-spreading mode of communication
>(comprising not only text, but also image and voice); it's becoming a
>cultural fact.
>
>Chat has always been despised and contempted for being not only mondane,
>but trivial, and a place where hackers, paedophiles, and so on are
>gathering -- the Dark Side of the Internet. So how many times have we heard
>"Cassandres" threaten: "this should be / will be regulated", if not simply
>terminated.
>
>We must be very cautious not to relay these discourses. As far as I know,
>MS has had a long term strategy concerning chat communication. They have
>paid social researchers to make surveys, and experiment various interfaces
>in order to make a good marketable product. They have literally looted the
>open, free IRC protocol (has they are used to) to build their own Microsoft
>Chat Network. In the same time, MS fought very hard to try to impose MSN
>Chat Messenger as a standard "de facto". Non-interoperability of instant
>messaging services is the key of profitability.
>
>Moreover, it not a news that Microsoft is engaged in a process of
>suppressing all free services or making them inusable. Just think of
>standard Hotmail service; think of the "2 months free" offer to use their
>"MSN suite".
>
>Actually, all this being said, I would think that if there is to be a
>sector of the Internet with which to begin the forced paiment for use, chat
>would be a good candidate.
>
>Guillaume Latzko-Toth
>
>
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