AOHell or ICQ? (Battle of the Instant Messengers)

Member Name: rob_writer

Product:	Battle of the Instant Messengers
Date:	11/09/01 (131 review reads)
Rating:

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Instant Messaging is something I've used since the start of my online life, and in my opinion has been the sole biggest factor in drawing people of my ages group (18) to the internet.

Back in the day when I had a 486 PC with a 14.4K modem I used ICQ, mainly to talk to my friends. As time moved on so have I, and I now use MSN Messenger as my main IM program, with ICQ used to keep in contact with the people I met on there.

I never really found internet chat rooms all that interesting; I mean sure they were a neat idea to begin with and I did make a few friends from them, but just about every chat room came down to the same thing. You get the 12 year old boys who repeat 'n e hot laydees wanna cyber', you get the 60 year old men posing as a 16 year old girl, and the abusers who post links to some so called great sites, which always turn out have something in it for the person involved. I'm not belittling chat rooms, because if you know the right places on IRC then you do get some good sensible people who share your interests, but personally I find the popular (MSN anyone?) chat rooms to be a hive for the least desirable people on the net.

You hear of people who become addicted to chat rooms, fortunately I'm never going to succumb to that, but there is another way of meeting random people that I fared better on. ICQ has a feature to allow you to search for a random chat partner, specifying various options, and in the same way you can make yourself available for random chat with other people. For a while I got pretty hooked on this, and after a few weeks I had built up a sizable group of friends with whom I spent a fair while chatting too. Some of them came from America, some from just down the road, and although I never actually met any of them in person I did get to be pretty good friends with them. A disastrous computer failure meant I lost my ICQ contact list and with it all of my friends, so that pretty much put paid t
o that one!

And there I go you see, thinking everyone is familiar with ICQ. Infact, I'm assuming you're all familiar with Instant Messaging, which I seem to always abbreviate to IM. Think of it as across between email, text messaging and a chat room. You talk to people in real time, over the internet, in a small chat room like window. It works like a chat room, except the people you talk to are listed in your contact list, and you and only you control who is on your contact list. Anyway, onwards with the story.

Chatting with random people is all fine and dandy, but at the end of the day friends are people you meet in real life, go to school with, play sports with and go out with, and I have foud that this is what the internet is best for. Me and my group of friends use MSN to contact each other more than any other form of contact, or at least as much as. If I want to talk to someone I'll try MSN first, before resorting to a txt message or a phone call. It's this that has drawn people to instant messaging and therefore the internet, as most people I know use the internet solely for MSN! This does get a little annoying when they also assume that you do nothing else but chat, those poor souls just haven't found Dooyoo!!

It's not hard to see why Instant Messaging is so popular, the advantages are massive! For the price of a local phone call you can talk to people anywhere in the world, and as many people as you like. To be honest paying phone calls is going to cost you a fortune, so some kind of un-metered deal is a must, but then again isn't that what everyone has now!!

So, the question is; which of the many IM programs is going to win?

It's important to realise that the people who make the programs don't just make the program, they also run the service that allows you to talk to people all over the world, which usually means them having a server somewhere in the world. They do this for
free, which is very nice of them, and although there has been talk of charging people to use IM (as well as other net content) I'm of the view that the first one to charge will die such a death that the others won't dare to follow. Would you even pay to access the MSN website? I don't mind paying for things, but what I detest is paying for something that was once free (hear that Napster?).

There are many IM programs out there, with more seemingly appearing all the time. The problem is, you're going to want to be using the same one as all your friends, so the tiny little unheard of IM programs are about as useless as things come. In my opinion you have four main players in the world of IM, namely AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), ICQ, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.

I don't claim to have used all of them - I used Yahoo briefly, but my hatred for AOL meant I haven't touched AIM; the other two (MSN and ICQ) I use every day. I do know of AIM though, and have witnessed it in use.

ICQ was the original challenger - it's been around for years. AIM has a massive user base due to the sheer volume of AOL customers throughout the World, while MSN and Yahoo gather their users from their email members and portal users.

You've more chance of winning the lottery than seeing a nice table comparing the number of users each service has, but even number of users is not a good indication - I have had 4 ICQ accounts through the years! Active users would be more useful, although a factor like the total amount of online hours accumulated by members in a week would be a more useful judge. Isn't going to happen though, so here's how I see the IM market at the moment.

AIM has a good share of the market due to the fact that everyone using AOL as their ISP gets it, and ICQ has a good market share because it was the original and in the IM market you tend to remain faithful! MSN and Yahoo are very much the new c
omers to the market, although their share is growing as they are popular with the younger end of the market (or so I reckon anyway). The computer experts use ICQ, while the average teenager uses Yahoo or MSN. MSN is beating Yahoo, and if Microsoft get their way and bundle MSN with Windows XP then expect it to take over the world (along with making Microsoft open to countless anti-trust court cases!).

It's interesting to note that AOL own ICQ, although compatibility between the two messengers fluctuates more that the stock market. For some reason IM providers seem not to want to make IM programs inter-compatible, and although there have been a few periods where one IM could talk to another, various wranglings between the companies have meant that it didn't last long. It's also worth noting that of the 4 IM programs, there are 2 different perspectives on how the programs work. AIM and ICQ are big programs with tonnes of features, add ons and plug ins. Some people call it bloatware, others call it functionality! For example, on ICQ you can play games with people, chat, send mail, leave off line messages, send SMS and generally do loads. MSN and Yahoo on the other hand are much smaller, basic programs, which are easier to use but still offer the important features. Which you prefer is up to you, but as this is my opinion I will say that I think ICQ is a bit bloated with features, and the sheer volume of things to do is overwhelming. MSN is much easier to use, so gets my thumbs up, although there are times when you wish you could do more!

The problem for users is that they could easily end up with friends on every IM program, leaving them having to run more than one (or all of them) at once. There is a solution, in the form of a few programs that integrate all the IM programs in to one. Odigo is an example of this, and while they work well, they can't beat the separate features, often lacking a few on the more advanced features each serv
ice provides.

So which do I reckon is going to win, how many will there be room for in the future? Today's market of four pretty popular messengers seems to work, although one can only imagine as IM gets more and more popular there will be a push for intercompatibility as people want ease of use. Microsoft have done little in which they have failed, and packaging MSN Messenger with XP will mean every new computer has it - that won IE the browser battle so one can only imagine it would do the same to the IM market.

I read an article, forecasting that IM would become as popular as txt messaging in the next few years. I can easily see why this will happen, as IM is a brilliant way to keep in touch. I met my ex-girlfriend on there, split up with my ex-girlfriend on there, and have met a whole host of people - but the thing is, these weren't random people who live in Australia, the way MSN works means that you're more likely to be introduced to a friend of a friend, and meet people who you'll probably meet in real life at a later date! Y'see, in some ways talking to people online is much easier than real life. In other ways it can also be much, much worse. Emotion flies out the window, which means a jokey or sarcastic comment you make can easily be mis-interpreted by someone else. Of course, this lack of emotion, and a lack of face to face embarrassment means conversations can be much more free of inhibition, which means it's a perfect place to have in depth, deep discussions with people, because there's no getting mad and no getting nervous. It also serves as a great organisational platform, as you and all your friends can meet up to plan that next big night out on the town.

IM is definitely going to get bigger, that's a given - but we will still have to wait to see who wins. If you want a tip from me, I'll just remind you of Microsoft's track record - what was the last thing if theirs that flopped?
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