Instant Messaging

Introduction

In order to use instant messaging software to chat with friends and colleagues, you need two pieces of software technology. One is a client and one is an internet service. Four years ago, the service providers were trying to lock you into their networks, so the choice of service provider mandated the client technology but the establishment of multi-protocol clients means that people can choose their service technology and correspondents as separate decisions, although not everyone is particularly promiscuous in their use of chat service provider.

Quick Start

• Work out who you want to chat to
• Choose one or more mutually acceptable chat services
• Skype permits Video calls, Google Talk starts a multi-dimensional relationship including calendar, reader & latitude and AIM has a good SMS interface in the USA.
• Open accounts at the service provider sites, if you don't already have accounts
• See get a chat service below
• Download and install appropriate clients, if necessary
• pidgin and adium require plugin's for some services, Skype and Facebook for instance
• Configure your service(s) within the client
• Define any new status that you may need
• Ensure that the client(s) start and run appropriately
• this depends on your usage, I know people who have their mobile phones turned off except when they're making a call. Not being logged in is the equivalent of having your phone turned off.
• Bob's your Uncle

Client/Server

While it would seem natural to consider the client configuration first, because that is what you see, I think it best to consider the invisible network services first, because that determines who you can chat with. The Chat services carry messages between two correspondents and usually offer an address book service as well. Most of the big technology companies offer this 'carrier' service, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, AOL together with new entrants, Skype and Facebook. The address book functionality usually involves you exchanging an invitation/response handshake i.e. both correspondents usually need to agree to participate in each other's address books. You'll need to have agreed which service to use through another medium, e-mail or phone. The client software technologies will need to login to the services. In order to acquire an account, you'll need to visit the service provider's web site, although see 'Chat Services' below.

The client device needs to be connected to the internet, best with a web cam and running a chat client software program. For a computer, the multi-protocol client software decision is constrained by the operating system you use. The two key clients available today are

• pidgin, available at http://pidgin.im and
• its Mac derivative Adium, available as a stable release at http://adium.im, or as a beta release at http://adium.im/beta.

If using Windows, Linux or Opensolaris, you should use pidgin, if using a Mac, you should probably use Adium. Mac's are distributed with a chat client called iChat but it only supports mac.com, AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and GoogleTalk. I recommend that you really need MSN, well I do, and I have been working for Sun for the last 12 years, so if anyone could ignore it would be me, but MSN can't be ignored. However if you want to chat to me, then AIM & Google work.

The internet chat services also usually support status reporting, and in some cases a mood state. The status text should be set so that your correspondents can see if you are OK to take messages. Its probably a good idea to set up custom states so that you can easily invoke them, I have states for breakfast, dinner, lunch, working, on the phone and some location dependent states, which are particularly useful when in unusual time zones. They permit signaling of online, idle, away and unavailable states. These should be used.

What is a protocol?

Strictly speaking the message and transport protocols are deep, hidden and technical standards and technologies, proprietary in most cases, but open in the case of Google and Jabber, who use a standard called XMPP. It defines message formats, security standards, error handling etc. What can be confusing is that often the whole of the internet componentry i.e. what I have referred to as the chat service is referred to as the protocol; once one uses multi protocol clients, the whole service just becomes a carrier protocol.

Bodie: What protocol do you use to chat?
Johnny: I use MSN dude!.

Some notes on Service Providers

Facebook is a social network with chat services embedded into it. You can use a web browser, or both Adium and Pidgin allow Facebook to act as a carrier service for their clients.

AOL inherited their chat service, now known as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) from Netscape, which is when I obtained my login. It seems pretty popular with my US correspondents and seems to integrate well with US phones and services. i.e. chat messages can be picked up on the phone via SMS, although the advent of smart phones means that multi-protocol IM applications such as Fring have become available, but you still need to login to the service with them. AIM has an asynchronous, nomadic mode of operation .

How to get a chat service login?

• AIM & Skype, visit their sites, create an account, with Skype, you need to download their client
• Google, you probably have an account; GoogleTalk uses their mail account id, but if you don't have a mail account then you can login to google talk to establish IM privileges and identity.
• MSN, again hard to avoid having an account, particularly if you use windows. (How do Mac Users get an MSN identity?)
• Yahoo, Facebook, their chat services are part of their portal services. You have this feature active once you login. Pidgin & Adium have Yahoo logins as part of their distributed functionality and Facebook is a plugin, available as aprt of Adium's beta release.

Mac's ichat application has mac.com, AIM and Google Talk and Jabber login methods configured. I have not examined if it is possible to use ichat as a Microsoft chat client. I use Adium 1.3.6, but will be upgrading to 1.4b9 as soon as possible. Adium does support MSN.

Meta

I have labeled this page and two other Messaging and have written about IM on my Sun blog, see http://blogs.sun.com/DaveLevy/tags/im

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