#10 Chat & Instant Messaging

What is Chat or Instant Messaging?

Chat, Instant Messaging and IM are all different names for the same thing. IM allows for real-time communication via text. It’s a conversation, in real time, but instead of talking, you’re typing.

You can do it online, using a chat service, like MSN Messenger, Google Talk, AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) or Yahoo! Messenger. You can do it in a chat room, with many people text-talking at the same time. You can do it on MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites. Chat is heavily used in online gaming, too. And if you have one of the cool kids’ phones, you can chat using your phone, walking around the library.

Discovery Exercise

Option 1: Google Talk
Now that you have a Gmail account, you have access to Google Talk, Google’s IM service. Gmail has chat built right in, so you can easily instant message with your contacts.

1. Find a friend, colleague or another member of this program and set up a time to chat.
2. Both of you login into Gmail.
3. When you see each other (your lights will be green), start a conversation by clicking on the person’s name.
4. Chat with each other for a few minutes to see how it works.
5. In a blog post, tell us about your Google Talk experience. How did it go? Did you find it easy to keep up with each other?

Option 2: MeeboMe

On this page is a MeeboMe box above. Whenever Chat with CTLS is online, you’ll be able to chat.

1. When you see Chat with CTLS is online, start a conversation by typing in the MeeboMe box.
2. I will chat with you. It would be a great time to ask any questions you have!
3. Chat with me for a few minutes to see how it works.
4. In a blog post, tell us about your chat experience. How did it go? Did you find it easy to keep up with each other?

Why should you know about chat?
The last time PEW did a study about Instant Messaging in 2004, 53 million people were using it. That’s a lot of people, and in the 4 years since the study, you can bet it’s grown.

It’s Social
Chat is one of the givens in online social networking. You’ve seen teens at your library, typing frantically, smiling, laughing, crowding around computers. They’re chatting. Almost any online game has a chat window for players to communicate during the game. Even Facebook’s online Scrabble game has a chat feature.

It’s Efficient
But chat is not just for kids. Many corporations and businesses use chat to enhance communication between colleagues. One of the great things about chat is the ability to set your status. You can be available, away, busy, offline, or invisible or you can set your own status (“I’m eating!”). You can see who’s available, away or offline (but if they’re invisible, you can’t see them, of course).

Seeing someone’s availability status is a huge boost to communication avenues. When you make a phone call or send an email, you have no idea if the person is available to answer you. But you do with chat.

Another thing you can’t do over the phone is share a document or a website link with your fellow talker. Sending a link over chat is easy – just paste it, and the other person just clicks.

It’s Easy
Meebo, which gives us the MeeboMe box you see on this page, is another service. It takes your existing chat accounts, and lets you login to all of them at once. So your friends from AOL, MSN, Yahoo and Google can all chat with you, and you only have to have one service running.

It can be Download-Free!
The cool thing about the MeeboMe box is that it allows people who don’t have a chat account on any of the services listed above to chat with you anyway. Great for patrons! The MeeboMe widget, as it is called, has become a popular way for libraries to provide IM/Chat reference.

More information for the curious

It’s a whole different language…
People who IM, much like those who text message on their phones, use many abbreviations to speed along the conversation. You know, things like LOL, FWIW, IMHO, and NOYB.
Huh? Find out what these mean and more at:

• Webopedia: Text Messaging Abbreviations
• NetLingo: The Internet Dictionary

Video & Audio Chat and VoIP
Of course, the web being the web, things evolve, add new features, and get much more exciting. Most chat services allow video or audio during chat. Video chat allow you to see who you’re talking to, and they can see you, provided you both have a webcam. Simply click on the little web camera icon, and you can start a video conversation. And with a mic plugged into your PC or turned on in your laptop, you can talk to someone over the internet.

Skype allows you to talk, chat or make video calls for free to other people who have Skype on their computers. It requires a download, which is also free. (If you tuned into Oprah last spring, you might have heard her praising Skype, the medium she used to have a world-wide book club, moving chapter by chapter each week through A New Earth, with Eckharte Tolle. Pretty neat!)

You’ve probably heard of VoIP (Voice over IP). VoIP is the digital transmission of voice through the internet. Many companies are going to VoIP technology to handle their telephone services. Pima County Public Library’s entire phone system is VoIP.

IM Features
Status - tell people if you’re available, busy, away, or offline
Contacts - keep a list of people to chat with in your contacts
Chat History Log - many chat services allow you to keep a log of the entire conversation
VoIP - audio communication inside the chat service
Video - video communication

Articles online

• IM Me: Instant messaging may be controversial, but remember, we also debated telephone reference by Aaron Schmidt & Michael Stephens — Library Journal, 4/1/2005 [Online] Available from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA512192.html?display=searchResults&stt=001&text=im+me (Accessed 8/15/08)
• Web-Based Instant Messengers: A Mini-Guide [Online] Available from
  http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/05/20/webbased_instant_messengers_a_miniguide.htm (Accessed 8/15/08) – Learn about different chat/IM services