October 29, 2002

10:47 AM

ICQ Snobs, Sorry: You now must communicate with the AIM Hoy Paloy.Another defeat for Cyber-Elitism!
posted by ParisParamus (78 comments total)

I never understood why certain people only do ICQ, but not AIM. One's easy; one's annoying.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:49 AM on October 29, 2002

Hoi-polloi.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:52 AM on October 29, 2002

Well, I use Trillian so I can be on AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and IRC all at the same time. When you've got vendors/freelancers that are on multiple messaging systems, this program is wonderful.

(Or if you're just trying to IM your buddies while you're sitting at work... Either way.)
posted by greengrl at 11:02 AM on October 29, 2002

Yeah, another satisfied Trillian user here. What are people still doing using AOL's lame-ass client these days, anyway?
posted by 40 Watt at 11:05 AM on October 29, 2002

"...and some consumer feedback from AOL members who wanted the ability to exchange instant messages with ICQ members."

Do bad they didn't ask us ICQ users for our input.
Cyber Elitism? Are AIM users so deficient in computer skills that they cannot setup and use ICQ? Somehow I doubt it, so where does elitism come into play?
posted by a3matrix at 11:05 AM on October 29, 2002

Can't the Hoi-polloi just install ICQ?
posted by ginz at 11:05 AM on October 29, 2002

Frankly, I expected this within six months after AOL bought ICQ. I wonder why it took so long.
posted by kindall at 11:07 AM on October 29, 2002

Mr. Crash: sorry, and thanks. I Googled my spelling and lots of other people spelled it wrong too. Does it take one to spell it wrong?
posted by ParisParamus at 11:07 AM on October 29, 2002

You mean there actually exist multiple proprietary IM networks?

Oh, sorry, I got a little carried away in my ideal world between Trillian and Gaim and all the IRC bliss that runs on or around my computer. (s/bliss/crap if you feel like it)
posted by azazello at 11:09 AM on October 29, 2002

Trillian rules (now with beautiful skins!).

Envy my 6-digit ICQ number!
posted by rushmc at 11:14 AM on October 29, 2002

Hell, I even bought Trillian Pro.

ICQ = Leaky Memory

Which only used to matter on my old computer, I guess.
posted by trioperative at 11:16 AM on October 29, 2002

i was formerly an icq snob (with a nice low 6 digit uin to boot - see, silly icq elitism at work) but found trillian last year and have been happily slumming with all the aim-ers etc ever since. i just installed trillian pro yesterday and cant' say enough about it... but at $25 a license it's a bit steep for a chat client sheesh. still the free version is just as good.

Frankly, I expected this within six months after AOL bought ICQ. I wonder why it took so long.

aol only recently became royally pissed with the existence of trillian and that's why i think they've made this move now.
posted by t r a c y at 11:16 AM on October 29, 2002

I Googled my spelling and lots of other people spelled it wrong too.

i've known other people to defend spellings by asserting that they were quite common on google. I wonder if we'll start seeing more "gray/grey" and "defense/defence" spelling type things (is there a word for this, linguists?) in the future? (btw: i prefer "grey" over "gray", but "defense" over "defence" -- just so you know).

in other news: another happy trillian user here, except for that sometimes the auto-away feature gets a little screwy.
posted by fishfucker at 11:16 AM on October 29, 2002

"Does it take one to spell it wrong?"

It must, I thought it was "hoi-palloi" until I looked it up. :)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:17 AM on October 29, 2002

I use AIM, ICQ, and IRC together a lot, but I really dislike Trillian. Their interface is a little weird if you ask me, and they don't offer all the features of AIM that a teenage AIM airhead like myself would need (full profile stuff, etc.). I use ICQ to keep in touch with some non-American family members (cousins and such), and I find it way worse than AIM. I get junk messages constantly, and the interface just isn't as nice. I don't see what the big deal about it is. And I'm a 7 digit starting with 2, so it's not ilke I didn't give it a try... :) Personally, I don't really mind having AIM, mIRC, and sometimes ICQ open all at once.
posted by swank6 at 11:18 AM on October 29, 2002

Trillian here as well. Wish the IRC portion was better (ie up arrow for history, reverse alongside bold and underline, etc.), but otherwise satisfied.

Swank6: you actually use those features? I hate to judge anyone on so very little information but . . . ugh. As for spam, just set it so you don't receive messages from people you don't know. Problem solved. It's not as if anybody you don't already know has any business contacting you. Or that they will contact you for any reason other than to get money/eyeball-time out of you.

With the Trillian E-platino theme, whose interface you might appreciate far more than the defaults, plus Mozilla's Modern theme, one can have a very swank-looking browser/messaging system that is consistent in appearance.
posted by Ryvar at 11:26 AM on October 29, 2002

another trillian devotee wieghing in here.
and i, too, still have my original 6 digit icq number: 217069
hey! watch that drool, its getting on my shoes!
posted by quonsar at 11:27 AM on October 29, 2002

I'm surprised that AOL never started charging a few bucks for AIM, or at least better incorporated advertising into it (like advertising that would suddenly appear in your conversations). I think that would pull in a few bucks and yet not lead to a migration in MSN, or something.

Anyone like Apple's new Chat thing?
posted by ParisParamus at 11:31 AM on October 29, 2002

The grey/gray, defence/defense thing is, as far as I know, part of that whole color/colour, center/centre, judgment/judgement American vs. British spelling.

Here in Canada, we use both!
posted by SoftRain at 11:33 AM on October 29, 2002

Oh, one other thing I guess is worth mentioning:
AIM, ICQ, mIRC, IE, Outlook Express, Windows 9x, and an address in the 24.x.x.x IP block - all of these are great ways to shout 'come hack me' because of the frequency of attacks/scanning/proliferation of easy exploits for each and every one of the above.

I've sort of made it a point to stay away from all of them for this reason (and behind an OpenBSD firewall - yet more obscurity), rather than any real sense of 'cyber-elitism'. You go with what works, but at some point what works becomes so popular that it becomes a target for the diseases of the 'net.
posted by Ryvar at 11:43 AM on October 29, 2002

Though you may not believe it, almost every kid in high school and college uses AIM. Pretty much every single friend of mine uses AIM. Besides basic instant chat purposes, you can do other stuff with it. Some people actually do use profile stuff, believe it or not. In my profile I leave some contact info, so that when people can't find me or whatever they can look it up on my AIM which is on almost 24/7. Others do the same, and it works out pretty well. I also have one of those "How well do you know me" quizzes, which I admit is meaningless, but among friends it is fun nonetheless. And the profile changes regularly to whatever might be relevant/important/funny at the moment.

Is there a way to block messages from people I don't know? The software doesn't know if the unknown messenger is an advertiser, or someone I actually do know that I just haven't talked to yet online. I always get messages from people I know in real life who got my screen name from a friend, or found it from a long time ago, or whatever. Maybe they made a new name and didn't tell me about it yet in real life. I never get spam on AIM - ever. And you can download tools like AIM+ or MyIM which block ads, record history, allow cloning, and other cool stuff all very seamlessly.

I've just never figured out what everyone hates about AIM, other than the AOL part of it. It's simple, easy to use, effective, and definitely not bloatware. I'd say it's the best (and the only really useful) product AOL puts out. What does ICQ have that AOL does not? I understand why international people use it - my cousins never really knew much about AIM, everyone just uses ICQ there. Here it's the opposite, and for communication I'll go with what everyone else uses.
posted by swank6 at 11:46 AM on October 29, 2002

I have used apples iChat and it works great, it's just a little cheesy for my taste. You can, however customize it so there are no word bubbles or pictures, etc. and rendezvous would be neat to use to auto find your buddies on a network, but it also takes up a lot of screen space which i hate.

That's why I use Adium which takes up very little screen space and uses a tabbed interface. Combine that with Chimera for OSX's tabbed browsing and i don't have any problems with screen clutter.
posted by untuckedshirts at 11:51 AM on October 29, 2002

Screw 'em all. Jabber will interoperate with all of those services, and you can choose from hundreds of servers or run your own. There's a huge selection of client programs, with more being created every day. Plus it's open-source and extensible.

Sorry, got a bit /. there.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:57 AM on October 29, 2002

swank6 i'm not sure what you mean about not having a profile when using trillian... trillian just uses the profiles you already have set up for each of your IM clients. for instance you can view my aim profile as well as my icq profile via trillian, and i can see those of all my contacts'. you can change your various profiles from within trillian too, so there's no need to ever open aim, icq, etc ever again.

to change your privacy levels (ie: who can and can't message you etc) go into trillian's preferences, and if you have trillian pro go into your connection manager.
posted by t r a c y at 12:00 PM on October 29, 2002

My point was you can't make COOL profiles like you can with AIM. That was one of the reasons I didn't like it when I tried. I know that it doesn't really mean anything, but why not have profiles with cool designs and fonts and other stuff in them?

And I think you missed my point about the privacy stuff. I know you can of course block people who aren't on your list, etc. You can do that with any client including AIM. But there is no way for the software to tell if the unknown message is from someone you know or from someone you don't. My point was that I'd rather leave it open so that anyone can message me, in case someone I do know in real life tries to message me from a name I haven't seen before. With AIM I leave everything open (I have one person blocked, that took a lot) and I get no spam. In ICQ I get spam nonstop.
posted by swank6 at 12:06 PM on October 29, 2002

I look forward to this for one simple feature that Trillian (as much as I love it, and yes I have the pro version though I don't use it) lacks: server-side buddy management.

I use two computers, a PC desktop and a powerbook, splitting my time about 50/50 between them. I stopped running Trillian when I got my powerbook because I found that most of my buddies were gone whenever I fired up AIM, since they were added (client-side only) through Trillian. In the past 9 months or so, I've run the official AIM clients on both machines, just so that if I add a new client/friend at home on my laptop, I can communicate with them the next day from my office PC desktop. If I get a danger hiptop tomorrow, all my contacts would already be there as well. Having to add people one at a time on each system is something users shouldn't have to do anymore.

AOL has made it pretty clear they're not interested in opening up their AIM protocol completely, so it seems that writing information to their servers is something none of the upstart chat clients will ever be able to do.

So while I love Trillian and Fire and Adium, they're lacking a key power feature I can't live without, so I'll be using this feature and welcome it (I just downloaded the beta to give it a test out on my PC).

Of course, the last time I ran the ICQ client, only 3 of the 120 contacts I've collected over the past four years were online, as like me, everyone has migrated to AIM. I'm thinking ICQ is close to dead already.
posted by mathowie at 12:06 PM on October 29, 2002

ICQ saves all ingoing and outgoing messages..... AIM has no log of this sort... you have to save chat logs yourself....

with ICQ I can go back and read everyting that anyone has said to me and what I have said to them.... and its fully searchable.... this makes it more then worth it to me...

The interface is cleaner.. (once you turn all that extra bloat off..... )

plus I don't have to have a name like... JoeUser789328467834847283764
posted by LoopSouth at 12:07 PM on October 29, 2002

Why don't you people just use e-mail? It works fine for synchronous conversation. I've never understood the point of IM.
posted by toothless joe at 12:12 PM on October 29, 2002

matthowie, I didn't even consider that part. I can go to any computer lab at school, go home, go to my friend's house, my friend's dorm, or whatever, log on AIM and have my list there. I guess I take it for granted sometimes.

LoopSouth, check out my links to AIM+ and MyIM above. They do that and more, and in AIM there isn't really any bloat to turn off (except maybe the ads - which said software disables).

On preview - email, despite what we would wish, isn't really instant. You have to wait for it to send to the server, so on and so on... and it's far less convenient for having multiple instant conversations at once.
posted by swank6 at 12:14 PM on October 29, 2002

Re: the i18n bit. The AIM client is completely i18n-fux0red. In other words, you can't really write or read non-Western European languages in it.

Also, the only IM protocol that I know supports UTF-8 is MSN.

Interestingly, Mozilla has excellent i18n support now. It is only rivaled by IE/WinXP. Winamp 2 (the third most popular AOL software product) is also somewhat i18n-broken (it only supports 8-bit). Winamp3 has UTF-8 support, but it is not as usable as Winamp 2 yet. So overall, MS seems to be much more international-friendly than AOL or even Linux (which usually requires extra steps to set up UTF-8). I'm not sure how good it is on OS X. In my own setup, I look for programs/OSs that allow me to enter text in English, French, Russian, and Japanese at once, so it really has to be UTF-8.

Ryvar: I prefer what you prefer, also, not because of paranoia, but because linux/winxp/trillian is much more useful to me than win9x/aim. I prefer powerful, functional computing environments that don't require a lot of effort to set up, and I don't obsess over security that much - simple local port-blocking will do.

On a side note, Metafilter seems to be very US-centric in many subtle ways. But that's a whole different story, I need to get much less squirrely than I am right now to make a coherent argument about it.
posted by azazello at 12:17 PM on October 29, 2002

mathowie: Strange. My Trillian saves all my buddies correctly and pulls them from the server, I've just tried it with two different Trillian setups (although there is weirdness with buddy groups, but there is no data loss). I'm not sure if it can do that in real time, but it works for me. Did you try this with 1.0?
posted by azazello at 12:21 PM on October 29, 2002

ICQ saves all ingoing and outgoing messages..... AIM has no log of this sort... you have to save chat logs yourself....

trillian logs all incoming/outgoing chats/messages whether it be aim, icq, msn, yahoo, whatever.

With AIM I leave everything open (I have one person blocked, that took a lot) and I get no spam. In ICQ I get spam nonstop.

i never get icq spam. selecting "do not accept multi-recipient messages from non-contacts" takes care of that. on the other hand i just got 2 porn spams on aim while typing this, damn... time to look at my privacy set up for aim.
posted by t r a c y at 12:21 PM on October 29, 2002

... and it's far less convenient for having multiple instant conversations at once.
But far easier to keep track of than multiple instant simultaneous conversations. Everytime I try to deal with that I feel like I'm getting slightly more schizophrenic.
posted by Fabulon7 at 12:22 PM on October 29, 2002

I love how Microsoft thinks it's "unfair market exploitation." Hrm, you think? Pot, meet Kettle.
posted by whatzit at 12:23 PM on October 29, 2002

And while on the subject of AIM... (sorry for the second comment in a row, this totally slipped my mind). ICQ is terrible for ads, AIM gives it to us slightly better, and it can be improved ad-wise and feature-wise with DeadAIM. Includes transparency, logs, ad removal, and other customization. Free.
posted by whatzit at 12:25 PM on October 29, 2002

Mr. Crash: sorry, and thanks. I Googled my spelling and lots of other people spelled it wrong too. Does it take one to spell it wrong?

Have we really reached the point where using google is preferable to using a dictionary for spelling? Come on, relying on the hoi polloi for spelling tips isn't the best of ideas, is it? ;)
posted by The God Complex at 12:27 PM on October 29, 2002

Oh, and I had four six-digit icq numbers (100213, 100345, 100035 and another one I forgot), but they were all systematically stolen by hackers.

*sigh* the terrorists win again.
posted by The God Complex at 12:28 PM on October 29, 2002

trillian logs all incoming/outgoing chats/messages whether it be aim, icq, msn, yahoo, whatever.

Just don't let a logfile gets larger than one megabyte. It starts crashing all the time and doesnt stop even after you remove the big offending logfile. Don't know why.
posted by falameufilho at 12:33 PM on October 29, 2002

TGG: No, obsessive elitism wins again =)

A 150000000s ICQ number is as functional as a 100000s one. And it is not a status symbol among anyone mature.

On the other hand, it is annoying to have your ICQ number stolen, I agree.

(Mine is 8 million something.)
posted by azazello at 12:33 PM on October 29, 2002

And yes you can remove the ads on ICQ.... there are 3 .dll files that make up the ad fucntions.... just delete them.... no more ads....

I remember the guy behind winamp got in trouble with AOL because he write a plugin for winamp that covered the AOL ads with a spectrum analyzer..... (While he was working for AOL....)
posted by LoopSouth at 12:34 PM on October 29, 2002

I've been using ICQ regularly since '98 (although I registered back in '97), but now all my friends but one use either MSN or AIM, and the fact is the last non-irritating version of the ICQ client was ICQ98. I've tried using Trillian, but I don't like it, plus I use the voice chat features in MSN and AIM to talk with my mom, who is in Mumbai.
posted by riffola at 12:35 PM on October 29, 2002

I used to use both ICQ and AIM. ICQ was always a big memory hog as I remember it, and once AIM got file transfer capabilities, I (as well as 99% of everyone I communicate with) dropped ICQ like a bad habit.

I use Adium on my Mac here at work, and like it a lot better than the AIM client I use at home (note to mathowie and other Mac users: Adium *can* pull your AIM contacts from the server, just go to Account Config and select 'Download').

I know ICQ is still very big in Asia and Europe, but I think it's dead here in the US. I wish AIM would log conversations like Adium does, but, oh well. Another recommended AIM ad blocker: DeadAIM.

Tried Trillian, didn't like the interface.

And like swank6 said, *everyone* I know in college uses AIM. I know no one that uses Yahoo chat, and *one* person that uses Windows Messenger.
posted by gramcracker at 12:35 PM on October 29, 2002

Frankly, I expected this within six months after AOL bought ICQ. I wonder why it took so long.

...because they only just managed to do it?
posted by nthdegx at 12:37 PM on October 29, 2002

A 150000000s ICQ number is as functional as a 100000s one. And it is not a status symbol among anyone mature.

On the other hand, it is annoying to have your ICQ number stolen, I agree.

(Mine is 8 million something.)

Didn't I read awhile ago that they were being sold for $600 on ebay?

Also, the reason I liked my last one (100213) is because it's easy to remember if I want to give it to an acquaintance.

Besides, I only had them because the icq server used to default passwords to a lower case 'x' when someone unregistered a number.
posted by The God Complex at 12:51 PM on October 29, 2002

No, there was a beta version of AIM that could do it a year/year and a half ago. They pulled it PDQ, though.

One of my friends has a four-digit number. My own ICQ number is nice because it's an equation of binary powers.

4 * 16 = 0 + (2 * 32)
posted by Ryvar at 12:54 PM on October 29, 2002

I have seen several people SELL their low ICQ numbers. They sold them. For hundreds of dollars. People, they sold a NUMBER. If there is something out there more pathetic, please throw out the link.
posted by Ron at 12:57 PM on October 29, 2002

Ron - Oh... I don't know... Selling fake everquest shit?
posted by LoopSouth at 1:02 PM on October 29, 2002

"the hoi polloi" is actually redundant, since "hoi" means "the".
posted by RavinDave at 1:08 PM on October 29, 2002

I was a fairly disgruntled ICQ user up until about a year ago, when the masses at my university discovered IM all at once, and all decided that MSN Messenter was the shiat. Oh, I tried to resist, it being Microsoft and all, but I was slowly lured into the temptation of actually having buddies online again. And being able to actually access your IM from different computers was unheard-of with ICQ (can it do it _yet_?) Oh, and that 'uh-oh' sound was the most grating thing on the planet. What the hell were they thinking?

But now the newest version of MSN messenger seems to have popups.. hopefully they'll get the few annoying bugs out of Trillian and offer a more standard interface soon...
posted by Space Coyote at 1:10 PM on October 29, 2002

RavinDave: Only if you're Greek. In English it's treated as an unanalyzable compound, and quite rightly too. If we had to know the original meaning and usage of every borrowed word and phrase, we'd never be able to use our own language. Just to give an example of the top of my head: the "al-" in Alhambra is Arabic for 'the,' so "the Alhambra" is redundant. Also, for those who think "data" has to be plural because it's plural in Latin, you'd better use "agenda" as a plural too.
posted by languagehat at 1:13 PM on October 29, 2002

People, they sold a NUMBER

*cough*

I've tried instant messaging a few times, but I don't like it. I'm 33 - I wonder if this falls along gender gap lines. I know lots of people younger than me that live on IM. I know a few people older than me that use it, but not nearly to the same degree.
posted by willnot at 1:14 PM on October 29, 2002

People, they sold a NUMBER

*cough*

I've tried instant messaging a few times, but I don't like it. I'm 33 - I wonder if this falls along generation gap lines. I know lots of people younger than me that live on IM. I know a few people older than me that use it, but not nearly to the same degree.
posted by willnot at 1:14 PM on October 29, 2002

"the hoi polloi" is actually redundant, since "hoi" means "the".

Haha. I actually didn't mean to put that in there because I know that, but it's one of those verbal things that just slips by. It reminds me of when people put 'the' in front of every acronym for an organization whether it makes sense or not.

!!!
posted by The God Complex at 1:17 PM on October 29, 2002

People have actually paid for numbers before...
posted by anildash at 1:22 PM on October 29, 2002

'AIM is the l33t3st program out there. All l33t h4x0rs should use it."
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 1:24 PM on October 29, 2002

LH: Didn't say it was wrong -- just said it was redundant. ;)
posted by RavinDave at 1:30 PM on October 29, 2002

Fowler's sensible hoi polloi entry, particularly noting how certain American usages seem to invert the meaning (probably influenced by, frex, hoity-toity). He says "the hoi polloi" has been around at least since Dryden, so have at it. (Fowler in general dismisses as affectation the idea of making foreign loan words conform to their original grammar or pronunciation.)

For myself, I tired of ICQ, and few of my friends were on it, so I have no idea when the last time was that I fired it up -- at least two hard-drive reformattings ago. And AIM works very nicely as an integrated client inside Netscape 7. Under the Preview Release, it fired up as a separate application, but now the Buddy List is incorporated into the sidebar. The client only stays active (on the taskbar, at least) when messaging. I find it especially convenient for my current AOL-integration needs, though I need to log into AOHell with a separate screen name so that it doesn't intercept the IMs.

I do think that AIM is a crippled IM protocol in many ways and wish there were some progress toward a true standard that would incorporate basic privacy, history, and other features that AOL seems to think have no commercial value.
posted by dhartung at 1:49 PM on October 29, 2002

i've never had a problem with AIM.. until recently, i was using an old school version as well, 'cause i didn't ever really see any features in the newer versions that warranted upgrading. aimexpress was also extremely convenient, when i was on a computer that didn't have the software installed.

i just started using trillian a couple of months ago, and i only switched because i got a new computer and couldn't find the old version of AIM i was using. trillian gets the job done, but i only have one problem with it, which is probably due to my ineptitude. i can't select text from an IM window to copy and paste it somewhere... i have to go the extra step by opening up an extra history window and find the text i want to copy..

just a slight annoyance.
posted by lotsofno at 2:02 PM on October 29, 2002

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=hoi+polloi&r=2

Somebody in this thread's been plagarizing dictionary.com. Not that I'm pointing fingers...
posted by Space Coyote at 2:05 PM on October 29, 2002

I use AIM quite a bit and find it both useful and unintrusive. What I'd like is for Yahoo and MSN to work through it as well. Personally don't use either service but know quite a few people that do.

As for ICQ - I've installed it three times in the last two years and despised it everytime, same goes for trillian. Something about the interface. Why the hell does simple chat need to be so complicated?
posted by revbrian at 2:09 PM on October 29, 2002

I can't beleive I forgot this.... you can't send a message to a user on AIM when they are offline....

on icq... you can send offline messages... and they will be waiting when the uder gets online....

wonderfull feature...

I can't believe AIM doesn't have this feature....

oh well.... off to my "7 digit or less club" party.... hehe
posted by LoopSouth at 2:16 PM on October 29, 2002

dhartung: I know it's common, and inevitable, to refer to any edition of Fowler's English Usage as "Fowler," but the New Fowler has so little actual Fowler in it the title is actively misleading. You're absolutely correct about Fowler's good sense regarding loan words, but in this particular instance it was overcome by the effects of a classical education; he simply could not make himself hear hoi as anything other than 'the,' so we get this downright loony entry (from the first edition):

hoi polloi. These Greek words for the majority, ordinary people, the man in the street, the common herd, &c., meaning literally 'the many', are equally uncomfortable in English whether the (=hoi) is prefixed to them or not. The best solution is to eschew the phrase altogether.

The best solution is to eschew the phrase altogether! Really, H.W., didn't that sound a little nuts even to you? But I love the old coot, and wouldn't trade my first edition for anything.
posted by languagehat at 2:32 PM on October 29, 2002

That DeadAIM thing is interesting. So now there's three programs - AIM+, MyIM, and DeadAIM - that all do exactly the same thing. I thought AIM+ was the only one, and my roommate showed me MyIM which I thought was pretty weird. Ah well, it's all the same I guess.

As someone mentioned before, one of the huge advantages that ICQ did have for a long time was the file transfer thing. Now that AIM has it, that advantage is gone.

tracy, how about the constant list authorization requests, and also the random people from Brazil or Hong Kong that ICQ me looking to chat? That doesn't seem to happen on AIM at all, perhaps because of its US user base. As for porn spam - in years of using AIM, I can say with about 95% certainty that I have never gotten porn spam over it. I've never seen it happen to any friends either...

LoopSouth, how is an offline message different from an email? One thing I've noticed is that AIM users are much more inclined to actually use away messages that say where they are or what they are doing while leaving their AIM on all the time, instead of leaving the useless default one most ICQ users have. And, is having a long number any better than having the name John1231231? Be inventive and there's always screen names available.
posted by swank6 at 2:57 PM on October 29, 2002

I like the iChat program that came on my new Mac. I am banging my head against a wall trying to find a decent full functioned messaging/chat program for Jaguar. One thing missing from them seems to be voice chat, which is something I really liked. I've installed Yahoo!, but apparently their chat rooms are integrated into the program. ICQ seems a bit flaky at best. MSN messenger looks ok, but still feature-lacking compared to the Windows version.

Oh, and ICQ... 7 digits, first one is a 1.
posted by benjh at 3:33 PM on October 29, 2002

ICQ has a very functional java version that I've used when traveling. no need to install anything and my contacts are there. At home I use proteus . It supports ICQ, AIM, Yahoo among others and it has a nice interface.
posted by golo at 3:39 PM on October 29, 2002

Competitors and critics, most notably Microsoft, have complained to regulators that AOL's resistance to opening AIM to third parties is an unfair exploitation of its market leadership.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
posted by RylandDotNet at 4:28 PM on October 29, 2002

I've tried instant messaging a few times, but I don't like it. I'm 33 - I wonder if this falls along generation gap lines. I know lots of people younger than me that live on IM. I know a few people older than me that use it, but not nearly to the same degree.

Well, me bucko, I'm 39, and I love IM; loved it even more when I was dating. It's useful, can be seductive, and so on.

Next theory?
posted by ParisParamus at 4:35 PM on October 29, 2002

i prefer "grey" over "gray"

Oddly enough, to me, they have different connotations.

I have (what I think is) the opposite problem from that Matt was describing with Trillian. I have a number of ancient, dead nicks from several years ago in my AIM buddy list, and no matter how many times I delete them in Trillian, it just re-downloads them the next time I run the program. I even fired up AIM once and deleted them from there, and Trillian still grabs them.

For all of you who say you don't like the Trillian interface, it's gotten better. Try some different skins--some of them change (and simplify) the interface pretty radically. And transparency is da bomb.
posted by rushmc at 4:42 PM on October 29, 2002

but, what about PowWow?
posted by imaswinger at 5:21 PM on October 29, 2002

swank6 - some people still have modems.... yeah its hard to believe... but some folks just aren't online 24/7

to be able to send messages while that person is offline is importent....

to alot of people it is their only communication medium... as e-mail is just for spam now-a-days anyway...

my friends check their e-mail maybe once a day... but the second they get online... they get my ICQ message I have left.... no sorting through 100 spam messages... and perhaps accidentally deleting my legit message....

AOL is obviously trying to save server space.... I'm sure it takes alot of extra space to keep offline messages....

but its a nice feature... and I would never switch to AIM... it has always been behind... and still is...

Trillian... well... everytime AOL changes their protocal... you have to update trillian...

ICQ 98 can talk to ICQ 2000 and so on... I run 2000b... but I can send messages to friends on 98b..... no problem...

IMO.... if you use AIM.... its because probably all your friends do... and your forced....

ICQ is the ideal chat client.... hands down... it has always had all the features anyone would need... since the beginning...

AIM is just now catching up... oh well....

I guess it will all be the same network soon... so who cares...
posted by LoopSouth at 7:44 PM on October 29, 2002

Wow. I'm seeing dots. Is anyone else seeing dots?
posted by kindall at 8:02 PM on October 29, 2002

.......
posted by LoopSouth at 8:10 PM on October 29, 2002

i searched the page and i didn't see anyone mention MIRANDA. am i the only one using miranda and totally loving it? it has a ton of plug-ins that add some very useful features. plus, it has a tiny footprint and is highly customizable. for those people out there who need or want to use multiple IM apps i would strongly recommend checking out miranda.

i have to use MSN Messenger for work so now i can use ICQ and MSN messenger at the same time.

matthowie: get the nightly build of miranda rather than the latest official version and it adds the ICQ feature of contacting the online contact list and keeping it up to date.
posted by suprfli at 11:14 PM on October 29, 2002

Hoy vey.
posted by ParisParamus at 4:58 AM on October 30, 2002

i can't select text from an IM window to copy and paste it somewhere
lotsofno: yes you can! trillian works like X cut and paste, not like windows cut and paste. text you highlight is AUTOMATICALLY copied to the clipboard. the text does not STAY highlighted, but it has been copied nevertheless! go to where you want it and ctrl-v, viola!
posted by quonsar at 5:33 AM on October 30, 2002

Yeah... another satisfied trillian d00d here. I have a vast array of IM contacts that I have to keep track of for work in the web world... most of them are AIM, but the Europeans are all ICQ. No idea why. The few freaks on Yahoo or MSN make trillian worthwhile.

As a side note, there are a number of good skins out there that make Trillian easier to deal with. I use something called "Mod XP," which give it a simple, tasteful look.
posted by ph00dz at 6:01 AM on October 30, 2002

suprfli: No, you're not the only extremely satisfied Miranda user. Love the minimalistic interface without junk, ads, etc.
posted by c3o at 8:39 AM on October 30, 2002

Easymessage. Also a contender.
posted by Voyageman at 10:09 AM on October 30, 2002