Are fewer people using MSN?

[FridgeMagnet]

again, why not do this with email?

Much less convenient and far slower. Instant Messaging, as the name suggests, is instant; email requires checking. I can send and receive fifty IMs in the time it takes to get an email.

 

[ChrisFilter]

What he said. One is a collection of missives, the other is a conversation.

 

[Orang Utan]

too quick for me, i like to take my time to compose a withering criticism or elegant repartee
email's pretty instant anyway
basically, no-one's ever been able to persuade me how it differs in anyway from email, apart from coming in a really annoying intrusive box

 

[ChrisFilter]

It is, but it's different somehow.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's so not instant.

I used to just use email but it takes several minutes to get a one-sentence reply from someone. If you actually need several carefully-composed paragraphs, fine, but 90% of my work conversations are

[fridgemagnet] did you upload the new module version to live
[geek_person] yeah but you need to activate it
[fridgemagnet] ok
[fridgemagnet] does it need me to run update.php?
[geek_person] no, should be fine
[fridgemagnet] great, ta, just done

That would be about half an hour on email.

 

[Orang Utan]

eh? it'd take less than a minute

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Do you sit there checking your email every ten seconds or something? Most clients have at least a five minute minimum for auto checks.

 

[Orang Utan]

no, but i use it constantly and a little envelope pops up on the bottom bar when a new one comes in - i get about 300 a day, so i need to keep on top of things

 

[ChrisC]

Can you get on Facebook chat with out actually being on the Facebook page? I thought I read somewhere this can be done. Or was I dreaming?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

no, but i use it constantly and a little envelope pops up on the bottom bar when a new one comes in - i get about 300 a day, so i need to keep on top of things

Are you by any chance using a hotmail or live.com address?

 

[Orang Utan]

Are you by any chance using a hotmail or live.com address?

nooo! just my work address. i don't get spam - it's all work related.
i don't really chat on email now actually, i tend to use facebook or twitter for that

 

[FridgeMagnet]

If you've got some system which checks your email as often as an IM client would poll for replies you've got a weird system. Otherwise, yes, email would have the immediacy - except that it would still be really wasteful and annoying, because instead of all the elements of a conversation appearing in one convenient window, you'd have them split up between lots of emails (duplicating the whole conversation many times if you'd included it) and having to open a big clunky email client to see any of it.

 

[Orang Utan]

well, it's always worked fine for me.
can you have conversations with more than one person, in a loop, on IM?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Yes, group chats. Rather than you having to cc people and send the entire conversation around *every time you say anything*.

 

[Orang Utan]

Yes, group chats. Rather than you having to cc people and send the entire conversation around *every time you say anything*.

well that's just one click either way

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's way more than one click to send and receive a group cc'ed email.

You really should try it. There's a reason why it regularly takes over for little stupid questions anywhere it's introduced, where you just want to say "yeah is the photocopier working" but don't know how often X is checking their email. And who needs their inbox clogged up with shite like that?

 

[Orang Utan]

It's way more than one click to send and receive a group cc'ed email.

You really should try it. There's a reason why it regularly takes over for little stupid questions anywhere it's introduced, where you just want to say "yeah is the photocopier working" but don't know how often X is checking their email. And who needs their inbox clogged up with shite like that?

not to reply to one. if i need an instant response to something work related, i use my feet or the phone.
does im keep a record of conversations then, so you know who said what and when?
i don't think im is allowed at work anyway. we're not even allowed to download new versions of flash.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Yes, clients keep logs and they're much easier to read because everything's in order.

I don't have the option of going to talk to people because I work from home and I'm rarely talking to myself over IM. Even in the office, over half the company is abroad or also self-employed.

They don't use Flash. There are mobile sites you can go to to access the various networks - gmail has integrated google chat, which is one of the reasons it's so popular I would say - but if you can't, you can't. I'm just saying that there are good reasons why people use it.

 

[Orang Utan]

we obviously have very different jobs/ways of working - what works for one doesn't work so well for the other
i use googlemail for personal stuff but was unaware of google chat, but i haven't got round to working out how to move the addresses of all my pals from my outlook work account to googlemail yet. i will have to soon as my old work account will be no longer functioning by the end of november as i have been outsourced.

 

[sumimasen]

That was my point. You can't do that in F/B chat.

My bad.

Yep FB chat is indeed immensely cack in that regard.

 

[Bajie]

Skype has grown a lot in recent years, so that would take some of the market share away from MSN.

 

[Orang Utan]

what's skype?

 

[Bajie]

You have never seen or heard of Skype? You must of, but to give you the benefit of the doubt it is a piece of software you can use to make voice calls over the inernet for free or to chat using text with or without video.

A lot of people use it to talk to friends and relatives overseas in place of using the telephone.

 

[Orang Utan]

i've seen the word before, just never been arsed to google it, but hang on, what is 'chat using text...without video' if it's not email? email's fee too

 

[Bajie]

Yer I read your other posts so I understand what you are getting at, I use email also but I find if I am chatting to a someone using Skype/MSN/Facebook it is a lot quicker and also feels more personal than using email, as it flows more like a conversation, as conversations are about quick interaction and often interuptions and changing the topic suddenly. That is my opinon on the differences after using email and chat for several years, you can think what you like about it

 

[Orang Utan]

for sure, i still love the thrill of the text message myself. the waiting, the ambiguity, the potential for misunderstanding, the danger. my god, imagine what it was like when people had to just write letters to each other. has anyone here ever read clarissa? holy fuck!

 

[grit]

IM is pretty much my primary form of electronic communication. Making comparisons to email is just silly.

I thank google for integrating it to gmail, it was this integration that got most of my family/friends using IM, without really knowing it.

MSN also has a far stronger presence in Asia than in the west.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

http://www.pidgin.im/download/windows/

I've been playing with it tonight, its great using facebook chat through an IM client, but do you know if there is any way for to tell you when someone comes online, rather then just play a sound?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

beejive im+ for the iphone

£5.99, they make it for other platforms too.

The free version works fine enough.

 

[sumimasen]

There's quite a few of these cross-platform IMs. These 3 seem the main contenders:

Pidgin
Miranda
Trillian

Any experts care to opine which to pick, or are they all the same.