Chapter ten. Chatting Online with Windows Messenger

IN THIS CHAPTER

Introducing Windows Messenger 240

Getting Connected 242

Finding New Contacts 242

One-to-One Messaging 245

Group Chats 247

Making Internet Phone Calls 248

Video Conferencing 249

The Bottom Line 250

If you're like a lot of Internet users, you like to chat online with your friends, family, and co-workers. And if you like to chat, you probably do a lot of your chatting via instant messaging.

Instant messaging lets you communicate one-on-one, in real time, with your friends, family, and colleagues. It's faster than e-mail and less chaotic than chat rooms. It's just you and another user and your instant messaging software.

Windows Messenger is a instant messaging program pretty much like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ, and Yahoo! Messenger but with some online conferencing features thrown in. (The conferencing features come from Microsoft's older NetMeeting program.) It's identical in functionality to the MSN Messenger program that you get if you're a subscriber to Microsoft's MSN service. The only difference between the two is that MSN Messenger carries more of the MSN interface, while Windows Messenger has a cleaner Windows XP-like interface. If you're an MSN subscriber, you'll probably be prompted to download the latest version, which will have the MSN Messenger interface. No big deal; it works the same as Windows Messenger.