Progression of Instant Messengers

I logged on, clicked on one of the usernames on my list, and began to talk to my friend, who is now studying in Barcelona, Spain. If someone told me that I could talk with my friend in another time zone on internet without paying a single dime, I would have never believed that person. But, that's the truth today, and in this case, that magic device was Skype.

Zoning back to the good old days when people were satisfied by simpler games like Tetris instead of Call of Duty as teenagers do today, some of us may be able to remember Windows 95. That's a long time ago, considering we just had a release of Window 7. And, do you remember the sound, "You've Got Mail" from AOL (No, not the movie in 1998 featuring Tom Hanks)? Now, that's classic.

For a long time, even when I was attending high school, AOL Instant Messenger was the dominant device for quickly messaging people. Of course, there was Y!A Instant Messenger as well, but it shouldn't be disputed that AOL Instant Messenger was a much more popular one. People in Europe and Asia instead used MSN Messenger or ICQ or both.

Now, Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard student then, came up with Facebook in 2004. At first, this seemed to be just a major competition to Myspace, another social networking website, but nothing with the instant messengers. Then, before we knew it, in 2008, Facebook (and Myspace, quickly following Facebook once it saw how it lost some of users due to Facebook) implemented Facebook Chat.

This development was really ingenious and ergonomic for users. On the previous Instant Messengers, each person had a username or number, in the case of ICQ. But, with Facebook, because you are talking with people whom you are already friends with, there was no necessity to decipher who was talking to you. I still remember receiving (and sending) some prank instant messages to my peers in high school if they did not have my username.

While Facebook was first starting out though, Skype had already begun its state of art messaging system although the developmental focus has been in calling and video chatting. But, at least in my opinion, Skype has not gathered as much importance as it does now until somewhat recently. For the first couple months of Facebook Chat, many students, especially those in colleges, did not feel the need to install additional chat system. Furthermore, in order for them to use Skype, they had to use their own lap top since most of the college computers will not let students to download programs. On the other hand, Facebook Chat was accessible as long as they were on Facebook.

The transition from Facebook Chat to Skype occurred because of "lagging." I personally had the problem of lagging with my friend, who was an exchange student at my college. I tried to talk to her one night, and Facebook Chat system simply froze, and it was not because of differences in speed of internets. In fact, Facebook Chat has been rather notorious lately for its problematic issue of freezing and lagging. As a result, many students have turned to Skype, where they can IM as they want and call/video chat, if they want to as well.

In a recent New York Times article, the issue of technological differences from the age group - those born in 80's, 90's, and so on - will increase in gaps more and more throughout the time.¹ So, this is my ending remark: what do you see as the next instant messenger ten years, twenty years, and so on down the road? Maybe, we'll be chatting as holograms - who knows.

1. Stone, Brad, "The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s," The New York Times, January 9, 2010.