Commerce/anticompetitive/instant

Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) has quickly turned the internet into a vast communication forum. It was not always this way however, Instant messaging actully started before the internet. Instant messaging first appeared on multi user Operating systems like CTSS and Multics. The users communicated to help with printing quotas and other small tasks. The usefulness of this "Instant Messaging" soon caught on and systems like Freelancin' Roundtable were started. A few years after the come and go of programs like Roundtable, GUI based instant messanger clients were born, starting with ICQ. What started with a small program developed by five Isralis, quickly spread over the internet becomine a must have program for an internet user. Soon after the launch of ICQ, other clients began to take claim in the instant messaging market. Today the most common IM clients are AOL Insant Messanger (AIM), Yahoo Instant Messanger and MSN Instant Messanger (MSN). These clients not only allow for sending text to other users but have evolved and now let users send pictures, files, games, and videos between one another.

Study Guide

AOL

American Online (AOL) was the first to follow ICQ with the release of it's free instant messaging software AOL Instant Messagner (AIM) in 1997. AIM allowed users to create a "Screen Name", or alias, to mask thier online identity. AIM users were able to communicate with one another and have "buddies", people who the user communicated with often, stored on a "buddy list". Soon after its launch, AIM became in instant success. According to a June 2006 report, AOL had fifty-three million active instant messanger users. The second closest being MSN with twenty-seven million.