Instant Messaging : Encyclopedia of New Media

In its simplest form, Instant Messaging (IM) seeks to accomplish two goals: monitoring presence and messaging. The software relies on a central server or servers to monitor presence. When a user logs on to an IM system, the login is recognized and other online users who have that address listed as a “buddy” or friend are notified of the user's presence. The software establishes a direct connection between users so they can talk to each other synchronously, in real time. IM has a long history, but it has only been in the late 1990s that IM applications have come to the forefront, due to ongoing battles between commercial ventures engaged in its development.

IM was invented in 1971 as a chat function on a government computer network. Murray Turoff created it as part of the Emergency Management Information Systems and Reference Index (EMISARI) for the Office of Emergency Preparedness. Its original purpose was to help exchange information on opinion surveys between people in geographically distributed locations. EMISARI users accessed the system through Teletype terminals linked to a central computer. EMISARI continued to be used by the U.S. government for management of emergency situations until 1986.

“Chat” is a way to talk in real time with multiple users on a network channel, where everyone on the channel sees everything being said by all other users. IM, on the other hand, is a one-to-one real-time conversation between two users. The EMISARI chat function was called the Party Line, and was originally developed to replace telephone conferences. Party Line users all had to log on to the same computer over phone lines and read the text of the chats on Teletype units.

The first public chat software was called “Talk,” and again, users had to be logged on to the same computer to use the program. This was truly the forerunner of IM systems, since users could send a message to anyone else on the system and a note would pop up on the user's terminal.

The first large-scale rollout of IM came from America Online (AOL). IM had been a part of the AOL browser as early as 1988, in the form of “buddy lists” that let AOL customers know when their friends who also use AOL were online. AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) flourished, and as the popularity of the Internet grew, so did the demand for software systems that allowed real-time conversation. The early-tomid 1990s saw the introduction of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) software for group conversations, as well as IM software such as ICQ (or “I Seek You”) for non-AOL Internet users. An Israeli company, Mirabilis, launched ICQ in the mid-1990s as a free messaging program. AOL later bought out ICQ but kept the ICQ interface intact, even though it competed with AOL's own IM system. In 2000, at least five IM systems were in use on the Internet, with multiple versions for different computer platforms (Windows, MacOS, Linux). The diversity of this “client” software for messaging created a problem for users; there has been no standardized set of protocols among different systems. For example, an ICQ user cannot message an AIM user, because the programs are not compatible.

In late 1997, Microsoft submitted a proposal to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), seeking to establish a standard for interoperability between different IM clients. The proposal was backed by 40 other vendors, with the notable exception of AOL. Since AOL controls the two largest IM systems (AIM and ICQ, with a reported combined user base of over 100 million people worldwide), the proposal would have little impact if adopted. Many industry observers feel that this battle between AOL/Time Warner/Netscape and Microsoft will have repercussions that will be felt for a long time to come.

—Gary W. Larson

Entry Citation:

Larson, Gary W. "Instant Messaging." Encyclopedia of New Media. 2002. SAGE Publications. 4 Apr. 2010. .