Section 42. About Instant Messages
42. About Instant Messages 33 About Email and Text Messages 46 About Instant Messaging Services Instant messaging is a specific type of text messaging that focuses on a real-time conversation between two or more parties. Unlike email, PIN, and SMS messagesall of which can be sent and received using a BlackBerry deviceinstant messages (IMs) are considered part of an ongoing dialogue in which all the messages in a conversation are directly shown onscreen. In other words, you don't have to open an instant message to view it and there is no concept of an inbox for instant messages. There is, however, the concept of a conversation in instant messaging. The idea is that you establish a communication link with another person or persons and then carry out a conversation by sending short text messages back and forth. In the case of BlackBerry devices, the communication link is wireless, which facilitates mobile instant messaging. As you can imagine, mobile instant messaging opens up many unique possibilities for communicating in ways that weren't previously possible with traditional wired text messaging. For example, business people can quietly comment and share ideas with each other while sitting in on a presentation. If you've used a BlackBerry device in the past, you are no doubt already familiar with sending and receiving text messages such as email, PIN, and SMS messages. However, none of those forms of text messaging have the same feel as instant messaging. Just as Nextel's two-way pager feature on its mobile phones has changed the way some people work, so does instant text messaging. There is no better way to have a quick, quiet, two-way conversation with someone from any location, assuming you both you have wireless coverage. Generally speaking, you must use the same instant messaging service as the person with whom you want to communicate. For example, if you want to carry on an instant messaging conversation with someone using Yahoo! Messenger, you must use the Yahoo! Messenger client application on your BlackBerry device. You also must set up an account with the instant messaging service you select, assuming you don't already have one. Lest you think I'm completely sold on instant messaging, there is a downside. Similar to a phone call, an incoming instant message requires you to respond in real timeor at least that's the expectation. Unlike a phone call, where no one knows whether you're truly available to take the call, your instant message status is readily available to your circle of contacts; your status can be conveyed by an icon, text, or both. In other words, people know whether you're available for instant messaging, which isn't always a good thing. For this reason, it's important to keep close tabs on your instant messaging status and change it to Available only when you truly are open to receiving instant messages. Keep in mind that every instant messaging application shows a list of " buddies ," who are people you've decided to keep in your circle of communication. The status of people in your buddy list constantly changes to reflect their availability. If you send a message to someone who is offline or unavailable, she won't receive the message until she gets back online or makes herself available. Another downside to instant messaging has to do with the immediacy of the communication. One of the enormous benefits that has made email so successful is the ability it gives you to think about or otherwise research a response before replying to a message. Email is not immediateyou have time to gather your thoughts and reply at your own leisure. This is the key reason email has replaced the telephone for many professionals, especially in the tech industry. Instant messaging doesn't offer this similar comfort of having time to consider a responseit is as immediate as a phone call. This aspect of instant messaging makes it extremely handy for time-critical communication but a pain for situations in which someone is expecting an immediate answer that you don't have. Instant messaging is also sometimes referred to simply as IM . Because you can certainly conduct business using instant messages, you might be curious about saving conversations that take place. Unlike other types of text messages, instant messages aren't granular in the sense that you can't save an individual message. However, most IM clients allow you to save an entire conversation. This is in many ways more powerful than saving a single text message because you get to see the entire exchange of ideas as a sequence of messages within a conversation. You could argue that email has a similar sequence if you read through a series of replies to a message, but the headers and other formatting generally make the email thread tougher to follow than that of an instant message conversation. One last point to make about instant messaging as it applies to BlackBerry devices has to with your IM account "roaming" from your desktop PC to your BlackBerry device. One of the key concepts behind instant messaging is that it keeps track of your presence at a computerthis is where your IM status comes into play. You have a status that indicates whether you are available, busy, or away, for example. Because your access to an IM service is linked with your presence at a computer, you can be logged in to an IM account on only one computer at a time. So, when you log in to an IM service on your BlackBerry device, you are automatically logged off the service on your desktop (if you were logged on). In this way, your IM account travels with you and allows you to establish an IM presence on any computer, including your BlackBerry device. Presence is an important aspect of instant messaging and in fact helps to further distinguish instant messaging from the other types of text messaging. Email, PIN, and SMS messages have no concept of whether you are actually available to receive a message, while instant messaging does.  |
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