Instant messaging, abbreviated as IM, is definitely here to stay. It may not have super-wide use like it used to have, but it’s not going the way of the dodo any time soon.
Here are 5 tips to provide you with the best IM experience:
1. Always sign in as “invisible”.
With IM you’re always going to have that annoying friend that sends you a message THE SECOND you login. When you sign in as invisible you don’t have to worry about that.
And for those of you that skirt that and use online status checker sites to see whether someone is truly online in IM or not – I hate you. If someone doesn’t want to be bothered in IM, don’t bother them. When they want to chat, they will show themselves as online. Otherwise, bug off.
Yes, I’ve already seen that funny cat video, and you sent it to me yesterday. And the day before that. Hang on, BRB. [user is offline]
2. Purposely force your own text formatting.
On most IM clients you can instruct it to completely disregard any text formatting someone may use and force a nice plain readable font. Otherwise you’re going to have that idiot that IMs you using a black background with bright red text using a 24pt font size, and the font of course will be Comic Sans. And bold. And italicized.
How did Comic Sans get into my Linux? That does it.. I’m suing MSN for Gross Use of a Disgusting Font. I’m sure there’s a law against the use of Comic Sans somewhere. Has to be.
3. Turn off the spell checker.
Every other word – even for the ones you type – will probably be misspelled in your IM window. This results in seeing a whole swath of red underlined garbage which can prove to be annoying in short order.
Ordinarily I’m a stickler for spelling, but not when it comes to IM because even the best of spellers will make mistakes when in a real-time chat session. In addition, IM is not email nor any sort of vitally important document, so an occasional misspelling is OK.
4. Disable the “user is offline” sound.
Most people don’t mind the “user is online” sound, but do for the offline sound. Some messengers have rather rude noises for that event. AIM for example uses the sound of a door slamming shut and it’s a bit unnerving. Best to turn that sound off.
A bunch of user-offline sounds can sound like this (NSFW) concerning how annoying they are.
5. Only use “standard” emoticons.
Emoticons are necessary in IM to ensure the proper inflection is getting across since there is no voice involved – however I recommend limiting emoticon use to only ones that are widely used.
Everybody knows what these are:
:-)
:-D
;-)
:-(
But not everybody knows what these are:
:-X
:-&
:-*
B-)
If you stick to the most-known four emoticons above, you’re in good shape.
Some of you may say, “My IM client shows emoticons as small images, so I should be able to use whatever I want from the list provided, right?”
Wrong.
Consider for the moment the person you’re chatting with may not be using the same client as you. You may be using MSN, but they may be using aMSN, Pidgin, Trillian or Miranda. And unless you’ve asked them what they use or have seen their computer, you don’t know.
You especially need to be aware of this if you’re sending IMs to someone who’s using a cell phone, PC-to-text style. Many people who IM on mobile are using plain displays, meaning not fancy smartphone screens with IM client software that shows all the emoticon graphics.
^_^
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