Instant Messaging Technology

Instant messaging is a popular technique to communicate the people all around the world. Instant Messaging otherwise called as Chatting :).Yea the chatting is technically called Instant messaging.Now all teen age people are admired and adicted by this technology.Actually, instant messaging may be derived from the unix command "Write". This command used to communicate the people who are working under one system Obviously Unix system.All are know, Unix and linux both are multiuser operating systems.So these operating systems contains some basic command mode communication commands like "write".After that Internet Relay Chat (IRC) developed and admired most of the people.So the base of instant messaging may be comes from Unix like operating systems.After that mail service providers like MSN and Yahoo are developed their own instant messaging server or Chat server.MSN or Yahoo messenger are client programs which accepts and translate the communications recived from chat server.Like outlook or outlook express they have some advanced tools to communicate the people all over the world.Based on this Yahoo and MSN messengers Gaim was developed.Gaim is a multi-protocol client which accepts all the protocols followed by the Famous Chat servers like Yahoo and MSN.Unlike yahoo and MSN messenger clients, Gaim has its own server Jabber has its own protocols and ports.Yahoo follows different protocol and MSN follows different protocols and ports.So we can't communicate the MSN people from yahoo messenger.Instead of that if you are using Gaim you can communicate all the people, but obviously you have one account from Yahoo as well as one account from MSN.Gaim just acts as a bridge, that connects two different servers from one client.Im using Gaim now, i feel the difference from yahoo and MSN Messengers.But only thing is lack of advanced tools.Yes, using MSN messenger you can share your windows operating system with your friend who resides in some other country.Yahoo has its own advantages like webcams,voice, mobile communication etc.The main reason for lack of advanced tools in gaim is, lack of support.Yes, we want to chat with yahoo people, we need yahoo messenger.We are not ready to use gaim.Gaim is a open source product.So it has in infancy stage.In future, gaim will defenitely improved by the people.I hope so.