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Instant messaging

Instant messaging requires the use of a client program that hooks up an instant messaging service and differs from e-mail in that conversations are then able to happen in realtime. Most services offer a "presence awareness" feature, indicating whether people on one's list of contacts are currently online and available to chat. This may be called a 'Buddy List'. In early instant messaging programs, each letter appeared as it was typed, and when letters were deleted to correct typos this was also seen in real time. This made it more like a telephone conversation than exchanging letters. In modern instant messenging programs, the other party in the conversation generally only sees each line of text right after a new line is started. Most instant messaging applications also include the ability to set a status message, roughly analogous to the message on a telephone answering machine.

Popular instant messaging services on the public Internet include MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, .NET Messenger Service, Jabber and ICQ. These services owe many ideas to an older (and still popular) online chat medium known as Internet Relay Chat (IRC).