15 Facts About Instant messaging

Instant messaging technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network.

Instant messaging was pioneered in the early Internet era; the IRC protocol was the earliest to achieve wide adoption.

Instant messaging remains very popular today; IM apps are the most widely used smartphone apps: in 2018 there were over 50 million Signal users, 980 million monthly active users of WeChat and 1.

Instant messaging is a set of communication technologies used for text-based communication between two or more (chat room) participants over the Internet or other types of networks (see LAN messenger).

In many cases, instant messaging includes added features which can make it even more popular.

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Instant messaging messages are often logged in a local message history, making it similar to the persistent nature of emails.

Parallel to instant messaging were early online chat facilities, the earliest of which was Talkomatic on the PLATO system, which allowed 5 people to chat simultaneously on a 512x512 plasma display (5 lines of text + 1 status line per person).

Early instant messaging programs were primarily real-time text, where characters appeared as they were typed.

Popularity of instant messaging was revived with new services in the form of mobile applications, notable examples of the time being BlackBerry Messenger and WhatsApp (first released in 2009).

Standard complementary instant messaging applications offer functions like file transfer, contact lis, the ability to hold several simultaneous conversations, etc.

Use of proprietary protocols has meant that many instant messaging networks have been incompatible and users have been unable to reach users on other networks.

Instant messaging has proven to be similar to personal computers, email, and the World Wide Web, in that its adoption for use as a business communications medium was driven primarily by individual employees using consumer software at work, rather than by formal mandate or provisioning by corporate information technology departments.

SMS is the acronym for “short message service” and allows mobile phone users to send text messages without an Internet connection, while instant messaging provides similar services through an Internet connection.

Easier group Instant messaging was another advantage of smartphone Instant messaging apps and contributed to their adoption.

Many instant messaging communications fall into the category of business communications that must be archived and retrievable.