Instant messaging

Instant Messaging (also known in English as Instant Messaging, acronym IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on text. The text is sent through devices connected either to a network such as Internet, or mobile data (3G, 4G, 4G LTE, 5G, etc.) regardless of the distance between the two (or more) connected devices.

The term is mainly used for the generation of technology that ran on computers, although many of these platforms have mobile applications. Messaging or chat apps that originated from or are primarily used through mobile apps are commonly known as messaging apps.

Introduction

Instant messaging requires the use of an instant messaging client that performs the service and is different from email.

Most of them use proprietary networks of the different software that offer this service on each different machine. Also, there are messaging programs that are very helpful for your shipment to arrive instantly that use the open XMPP protocol, with a decentralized set of servers.

The most used instant messaging clients in the past were ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, Pidgin, AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Google Talk (now replaced by Hangouts), and Windows Live Messenger, now integrated into Skype.

Currently, instant messaging has turned towards mobile applications, multiplatform applications, or directly or also web services that do not need any application to function. Facebook Messenger, Skype, Line, Hangouts, Telegram and WhatsApp are especially relevant.

All these services have inherited some ideas from the old IRC chat system, especially regarding the use of expressions, emoticons, or system to interact with other contacts. As a general rule, none of these services allow communication with users of other applications.

Features of Instant Messaging

Messaging systems have some basic functions apart from showing the users that are online and chatting. One are common to all or almost all clients or protocols and others are less common:

Contacts:

• Show several states: Available, Available to talk, No activity, Not available, I'll be right back, Invisible, not connected.
  • With the invisible state you can see others, but others can't.
• Show a status message: It is a word or phrase that appears on the contact lists of your friends next to your nick. It may indicate the causes of the absence, or in the case of the state available to speakThe subject you want to talk about, for example. Sometimes it is used by automatic system to show the temperature, or the song you are listening to, without bothering with messages or requests for continuous chat.
  • You can also leave a status message on the server for when it is disconnected.
• Register and delete users from your own contact list.
  • When requesting inclusion in the contact list, a message can be sent explaining the reasons for admission.
  • Reject a user discreetly: when you do not want a specific user to see you when you connect, you can refuse the user without failing to be on your contact list. Just stop warning when one connects.
• Sometimes contacts can be grouped: Family, Labour, Faculty, etc.
• An avatar can be used: an image that identifies one. It doesn't have to be the picture of yourself.

Conversation:

• There may be several types of messages:
  • Notice: sends a message alone. It is not an invitation to keep the conversation, you just want to send information, an example of using this type would be Message of the day or MOTD offered by the server.
  • Invitation to chat: you are invited to have a real time conversation.
  • Emerging message: It is a warning that deploys a few seconds and closes again. It does not require attention if it is not desired. Serve as a brief warning to disturb as little as possible. For example, "I already found it, thank you."
• It is often useful to show when the other is writing.
• Emoticonos can often be used.
• Group Talks IRC MultiUser Chat:
  • You can create rooms (talking groups), public and private and also permanent or disappear when you stay without users.
  • Restrict access to rooms by means of certified invitations, to invite only anyone you want.

Other:

• Send files: most instant messaging customers also allow sending files, usually using point-to-point protocols (P2P).
• Possibility to use other communication systems, such as an electronic board, or open other programs such as a VNC or a videoconference.
• Services The instant messaging is usually used from person to person, but can be used, using software robot so that they can be used from person to team, in this case, it is instant messaging services a type of application that is increasingly used, for its speed of response and versatility of services.

Programs: Some instant messaging programs are: WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Line, Discord, Google Chat, Telegram, ShazzleChat.

Connection protocols

History

An early form of instant messaging was implemented in the PLATO system used in the early 1970s. Later, the talk system implemented in UNIX/LINUX began to be widely used by engineers and academics in the 1980s and 1990 to communicate through the internet. ICQ was the first instant messaging system for computers running non-UNIX/LINUX operating systems in November 1996. Since its appearance, a large number of variations of instant messaging have emerged and have been developed in parallel elsewhere, each application having its own protocol. This has led users to have to use a client for each service simultaneously to be connected to each messaging network. Alternatively, multi-client programs have emerged that support various protocols such as Pidgin or Trillian.

Today, most messaging services have added the option to send and receive files (especially multimedia), location information, video or audio, including IP telephony (VoIP), and video conferencing.

In recent years, they have carried out research that seeks to take advantage of the familiarity that young people have with this type of practice to integrate it into educational strategies, as is the case with WhatsApp groups.

Competition

• Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
• SIMPLE
• XMPP
• Yahoo
• Discord