Comment Re:uh oh... (Score 1) 235
The strength of IM is the ease of real time communication and better signal to noise ratio. You can use Email like IM by sending a message that your recipient has a short reply to and simply continue replying with one another. We see this metaphor in how GMail presents our messages and links the ones with the same subject line.
Email allows someone to communicate with most anyone else who has Email as long as you have their Email address (gotta love that Spam! grrr...). Some providers allow forms of spam filtering including whitelists, blacklists, baysian filtering, automatic deletion of known spammer IPs, etc. Still, some get through so if I see a "You Got Mail" icon on my systray, I do not put as much priority into reading that message because it could be from just about anyone who knows me or just harvested/guessed my Email address.
Now with Instant Messaging, you have the ability to lock down the number of people who can contact you. Yes, you can set Yahoo!, AIM, or ICQ to reject all messages except from people on your contact list. Of course, you might lose messages from some random person not on your list but all major IM protocols (MSN, Y!, AIM, ICQ) have an authorization feature.
When you lock down the number of contacts who can send messages, that signal to noise ratio is extremely nice. Besides, someone sending you an IM should be able to contact you over Email or by phone since most of us don't care to add complete strangers to our contact list!
IM might be a very immediate form of communication that could be abused but atleast I can select the people who are going to be able to abuse it!
-Dan
Email allows someone to communicate with most anyone else who has Email as long as you have their Email address (gotta love that Spam! grrr...). Some providers allow forms of spam filtering including whitelists, blacklists, baysian filtering, automatic deletion of known spammer IPs, etc. Still, some get through so if I see a "You Got Mail" icon on my systray, I do not put as much priority into reading that message because it could be from just about anyone who knows me or just harvested/guessed my Email address.
Now with Instant Messaging, you have the ability to lock down the number of people who can contact you. Yes, you can set Yahoo!, AIM, or ICQ to reject all messages except from people on your contact list. Of course, you might lose messages from some random person not on your list but all major IM protocols (MSN, Y!, AIM, ICQ) have an authorization feature.
When you lock down the number of contacts who can send messages, that signal to noise ratio is extremely nice. Besides, someone sending you an IM should be able to contact you over Email or by phone since most of us don't care to add complete strangers to our contact list!
IM might be a very immediate form of communication that could be abused but atleast I can select the people who are going to be able to abuse it!
-Dan
