Is instant messaging dead?

I do not text on my cell phone, I think texting is retarded, and it causes people in stores to be stupid and people driving to kill people... anyways, I do lots of IM, but 95% of it is Facebook Chat via Digsby...
 
Texting is blocked on my cell phone and the only IM client I have installed is Steam (because I have to to play my games).

I generally prefer face-to-face communication if at all possible.
 
steam, facebook, and texting are the only IM/IMlike things I do anymore. The vast majority of my friends have steam, my family and close friends have my cell, and everyone else has Facebook. :p
 
My fingers are too big to text on my cellphone. :/ I use AIM, Steam, Live, and IRC, so no, not dead. XD
 
Keero said:
I use AIM, Steam, Live, and IRC, so no, not dead. XD
Click to expand...
And yet your AIM and Live user IDs aren't on your forums profile. -_-

I'm seeing a lot of posts that mention Facebook chat. I use two separate profiles for Trillian (one for personal, one for gaming). While Trillian supports Facebook chat, it doesn't seem able to switch Facebook accounts when I switch profiles. I do not like to use web-based chat clients, so you'll rarely see me log in to Facebook chat with my gaming FB account.

If I can find a chat client (other than the ad-bloated Digsby) with better Facebook support than Trillian, I would not be opposed to switching clients.

I'm also seeing a trend of using instant messaging primarily to chat with people you already know in real life. I haven't met most of the people on my IM contact lists face-to-face, so I have a different perspective on IM--one, it would seem, that is increasingly uncommon.

As for testing: My wife and I have a cell phone plan that allows us to send or receive 200 text messages a month, so my texting is limited.
 
i still regularly use AIM and IRC, and for friends/family that don't use that I use Facebook.

Though, almost all of my contacts are streamlined on my phone. The only thing that would make it easier would be if i had an HTC phone, I hear that Sense UI is way way more streamlined that typical android SO syncing.

I'm honestly more glued to my phone now than my computer.
 
I used to IM quite a bit - but over the past couple of years I have moved to facebook and texting, almost exclusively. I do chat within facebook and Guild Wars, some.
 
It was very interesting seeing the contrast between the old thread, and after this has been bumped. I am on aim/yahoo/msn each and every day during work, but not at home. I can definitely report that there are not that many people talking during the day.

Watched a video last week at Sunday school about how relationship groups are getting strained nowadays, especially in America with new technologies. Basic gist is - we're interacting with more people, but much less deeply. I'd highly recommend it; it's definitely had me taking a look at exactly how much I let things fragment.

Intro: http://vimeo.com/10385601
First Lesson: http://vimeo.com/11236155
 
Aside from Facebook chat to keep in touch with a couple friends out of the area, I hardly IM anymore. I have Xfire (and subsequently AIM) up whenever I'm online, but the only time I get messages or send messages are as a secondary source of communication. If I can't find someone online through Facebook or in-game, THEN I check my IM.
 
I have only recently set Adium to not load on startup. The last 10 messages I have received were spam. About the only person I see online that I'd want to talk to is Tek, & I don't really know you well enough to just chat....

***Edit***
I do, however, check Twitter nigh constantly. I also just found iFire, a Mac port for Xfire, so I'm back on there.

And to be perfectly honest, even back in the heyday of IMing, I didn't talk to people much. I'm pretty much a quiet guy.
 
Last edited:
XionTawa said:
They have since dropped all the crapware, and it uses less RAM than ANY other multi-IM client I have used...
Click to expand...
Really? I used digsby from close to the beginning (and rather liked it), but dropped them as soon as they added it. I wonder if I should go back...because I haven't been thrilled with Trillian lately.
 
regardless of ads i still really liked it as a very robust system and use it on my work pc.
 
I have Facebook chat set up as a Jabber connection in Trillian (see this page for details), which means I can chat with my gaming account Facebook friends now.
 
i think about the only thing i truly use IM for is to connect with old friends whom ive never met, e.g. litsafalda and savio ghandi and CCGR. and an occasional thing on skype with my boss for minor instructions or references.

its interesting to me that chat as we have known it in the late 90s and early 00s has changed into stuff like this :
http://37signals.com/

have we lost our sense of wonder with technology and connecting with people that we retreat and withdraw?
 
Does anybody know a good way to get XFire going with a client like Trillian/Digsby/etc? As far as I can tell, digsby does not have one...and every time I try to connect to xfire on Trillian, it crashes.
 
I used to IM quite a bit a few years ago but now I generally only use IM on Xfire and Steam, and even those are usually only for game invites and such. In fact, I had stopped using AIM, Yahoo & MSN Messenger altogether until I installed Digsby a few months ago.

I haven't had any problems with Digsby. I get zero advertising. I now log in with all my AIM accounts, plus Yahoo, Windows Live Messenger and Gmail chat. It also interfaces with my FB account so I have live news feed updates.

I still have to run Steam and Xfire separately and I don't see those ever being incorporated into Digsby or a similar program since they are also used to launch games.
 
Yeah, not really worried about in-game functionality, I'm really only on IM clients while I'm at work. I was mainly looking for something to connect to XFire for gaming contacts, but I hate the XFire interface. I mean, no tabbed IMs? Really?

Anyway, I decided to check on Pidgin, and sure enough...it has an XFire plugin, so I'm rockin' that now. I don't like the interface as much as Trillian Astra, but it's good enough.
 
RyanB said:
Yeah, not really worried about in-game functionality, I'm really only on IM clients while I'm at work. I was mainly looking for something to connect to XFire for gaming contacts, but I hate the XFire interface. I mean, no tabbed IMs? Really?

Anyway, I decided to check on Pidgin, and sure enough...it has an XFire plugin, so I'm rockin' that now. I don't like the interface as much as Trillian Astra, but it's good enough.
Click to expand...

see tabbed IM is dangerous imo, i always send the wrong message to the wrong people and would rather alt-tab
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top