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jwolf6589

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 15, 2010
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Colorado
With FaceBook, Twitter, texting, and such it seems that no one uses IM like AIM, Yahoo, and MSN these days. Will we see the end of Instant Messaging in the future?


John
 
Kinda. MSN chat is years ahead facebook chat, but I have more friend connect to facebook chat than to MSN, which is the important thing.
 
i can't remember tha last time i sent an instant message using iChat or AOL, with Social Networks and texting, i don't know if they'll do away with it, but its not even address today, who was the last person to ask you if your on AOL or ichat messaging...

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A few weeks ago I would have told you yes. But after what Facebook did to their chat system, I don't know anymore...
 
A few weeks ago I would have told you yes. But after what Facebook did to their chat system, I don't know anymore...

Oh yeah FaceBook DESTROYED their once useful chat feature. You cant even see who is all online anymore among other issues.
 
I use MSN and IRC daily. Especially IRC is irreplaceable but I have to admit that Facebook has reduced my need for MSN as fewer and fewer of my friends use it anymore.

EDIT: Moved to different forum since this is talking about the industry
 
I was actually thinking about that the other day. I think it's over, with BBM around, smartphones always in hand, and the ease of texting or downloading an app for a social networking site. AIM was always the biggest by me, and I always had a million unnecessary friends' screen names, and went through about a dozen myself. By the time I got through my first year of college, I found myself signing on only to end up typing [always so witty] "away messages" as Facebook and the good old chat feature became more widely used. I uninstalled AIM like three years ago and haven't even heard a reference to it since. I think most people are on Facebook, and many more are beginning to use Twitter and things of the like. My grandma has a Facebook soooo.... haha
 
I've never use IM and I'm not on any social networks. I communicate the old-fashioned way: phone, text, email.:cool:
 
I use AIM from time to time and MSN Messenger all the time. Great for sending files to people too (essential in my line of work), with no middle-site holding the file.

Don't like using Facebook chat, but Twitter is a great replacement for text messaging.
 
For quick messages, I use Twitter. For longer convos I still like YIM, AIM, or MSNIM.

Obsolete? How old is email and it's still around. People get all worked up saying one form of technology will die, but the fact is it doesn't have to. If it's useful and apropos it will last, like email and the telephone. IM will be here for quite some time.
 
I use AIM from time to time and MSN Messenger all the time. Great for sending files to people too (essential in my line of work), with no middle-site holding the file.

Don't like using Facebook chat, but Twitter is a great replacement for text messaging.

MSN for Mac is horrid. What line of work are you in? I agree that IM apps are far more powerful than lame FB chat. You can do so much with Adium its not even funny.
 
I wouldn't say that they're obsolete. It seems to be a general consensus in this thread that IM applications and the like have far greater capabilities than the likes of social networking chats like Twitter and Facebook.

While Facebook and the rise of texting has definitely taken a lot away from the instant-messaing app era, I think that the general knowledge that they're all still of higher quality will keep them alive in the time to come.

I use AIM and MSN to chat with online buddies, and Facebook to chat with my real life friends.
 
I always tend to rely on applications rather than things running in my web-browser.. It's to darn easy to accidentally closing the web-browser, or closing the wrong tab and how often doesn't the web-browser suddenly decide to go haywire and messing things up?

I find it much better and easier to have a dedicated application in my dock bouncing every time something important happens, instead of keeping track on what's going on in my web-browser all the time.

My main problem is the lack of competitive solutions combing an awesome integrations of all my different instant messaging needs. All my friends are on Facebook chat and Windows Live Messenger.. Which requires me to have both the horrible Messenger for Mac v8.0.1 that's downright awful. Everything from the UI, to the preferences, to the video functionality is way worse than Live Messenger for Windows have ever been, it almost reminds me and behaves just as buggy and clunky as MSN Messenger 6.0 back in the days.

Not to mention than the Office Updater doesn't even update Messenger for Mac eventhough it's included with Office 2011 for Mac. You actually have to keep track on Microsofts site and manually download updates like with v8.0.1 that you wont receive without downloading yourself...


Secondly it doesn't integrate Facebook chat like it's Windows sibling, forcing me to run another application for all my Facebook chatting. I want one darn application for both, and still being capable of providing me with video-chat features etc.. But that's impossible! Did I mention that Microsoft have re-done their entire adding and deleting contacts system, rendering the one in Messenger for Mac 8.0.1 useless? So I get back all those deleted contacts that I got rid of with Live Messenger 2011 on my Windows machine? And if I try to either add or remove some one using Messenger for Mac 8.0.1 it either crashes or does nothing at all? I actually have to logon Live Messenger on a Windows machine in order to do this, which is insane.


I really wish alternatives like Adium, Meebo and Trillian could include video-chat and I would be in heaven!
 
MSN for Mac is horrid. What line of work are you in? I agree that IM apps are far more powerful than lame FB chat. You can do so much with Adium its not even funny.

Game development. Under Windows I use the regular Microsoft Messenger, under OSX I use Adium, which is really slow but I don't work on OSX.
 
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