Instant messaging has grown beyond the realm of teenage chat, working its way into office collaboration, customer service, financial services, and even the U.S. Navy, which is using it both at the Pentagon and on over 300 ships at sea. In addition, instant messaging is moving to cellphones, PDAs, and other mobile devices, making it the one mode of communication that can find you wherever you are. Its underlying technology, "presence"--a protocol for indicating when someone is on-line and available--is being added to telephony, e-mail, on-line entertainment, and e-commerce.
Instant messaging services, such as those from AOL, Microsoft's MSN, and Yahoo, are becoming tools for real-time data exchange, with the potential of becoming platforms for audio and even video telephony. Already, users of MSN and Yahoo in India are making free international "telephone" calls via instant messaging.
As a real-time form of communication, instant messaging could combine the best aspects of the phone and e-mail--or the worst, particularly the phone's vexing ability to interrupt important tasks. So human-computer interaction researchers at AT&T, Microsoft, the Palo Alto Research Center, and elsewhere are coming up with ways to minimize instant messaging disruptions while retaining its immediacy. Some techniques include limiting the people who can track you (via the so-called buddy list); using auditory cues instead of message windows; and diverting some messages to other modes, such as e-mail, when you're concentrating on a critical task.
If these researchers get it right, instant messaging and the technology of presence will be ubiquitous. We will hardly ever be out of reach of anyone.
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