For instance, take the Microsoft Network (MSN) Messenger (IM) system. It was a relatively dry system compared to many of the other systems like the Paltlak or even Yahoo! messenger. But with the .Net technology they added many new features that not just included the file transfer or voice but also ‘video-enabled through Net’ meeting.

Here is an explanation on what Instant Messenger is all about. When you get on to Net from your computer, you remain connected with millions of computers across the world through the Net, which has spread to every nook and corner of the world. So if there is a messenger that carries your message instantly on a personal basis to friends and relatives across the world, when you are on the Net, they all can chat online, hear things online and even see each other like a videophone with a multimedia computer. Of course, both parties need multimedia computers to achieve it.

With the computer acquiring the multimedia nature, the Internet is utilising its features to deliver what they call data, voice and video, bringing persons across the world to the computer.

It all began with the chat-rooms on the Net. People had chat in chat -rooms. But they realised the limitations of chatting in a crowded place and wanted more privacy. The fact that young persons and singles used Internet chat-rooms often gave privacy a sexual overtone, giving birth to software like ICQ, which is celebrating its 5th anniversary this year. ICQ and its brand of IMs with their powerful worldwide search engines and profiles promise to bring people of similar interests together using the one-to-one chat mode.

ICQ, like the name indicates, seeks out people. I have got surprises on ICQ often: a lawyer from Brazil, a little girl from Russia, a labour worker from the UK who wants to discuss politics with me, an American who was surprised to see an Indian from Delhi on the ICQ and Romanian teacher. They all wanted to chat with an Indian. But I must say like all IM chat messengers, ICQ also brought forth men and women seeking each other. ICQ has offline message facility too. Of course, what you need from an Internet site is all available on ICQ itself— pay phone and file transfer greeting.

But take relatively less-known and new software like Paltalk.com. It has features like creating various user groups. You can create your own groups and rooms and be your own master in Paltalk. Your own friend’s circle. Maybe it will have your own family members across the world. And the beauty is that you can leave offline messages to pass on information to offline friends. Then to top it all, it has online, voice and video chat facilities in various rooms and also a one-to-one facility. All these through a free download occupying very little space in your machine.

For instance, a family Indian with many NRIs can create a room in Paltlak and activate it, whenever they want to. They can chat on voice, see each other and be happy. A meeting place in the virtual world at your convenience. The offline messages can be used to coordinate your meetings too.

Already there are ghazal rooms, India-baiters and Punjabi music on various rooms, not to talk about the other communities.

With video becoming an integral part of the chat-rooms, Paltalk is huge and sagging, one must say. Frequent shutdowns and updates keep happening. But it still remains an exciting place among the IMs with added features. The beauty of Paltlak is it takes the minimum bandwidth to connect and also does not take up much space with your computer.

Eyeball.com is another video chat facility but takes a lot of bandwidth and is a complicated way to see and meet persons. However, it is better designed than Paltlak.

The most popular and frequently used IMs are that of MSN and Yahoo! They form part of the two most well-liked e-mail identities across the world. They have their own attractions. Both have added video to their voice chat facilities in their IMs. MSN voice chat has some hitch and so does Yahoo! The computer at the other end may not have been properly connected or the Net connection wasn’t so stable.

Could be that MSN and Yahoo! IMs are add-on features of the mail facility and has its own limitations and are thus not as user-friendly as an ICQ or a Paltalk, which are custom built for IMs. The addition of video to MSN was recent with .Net technology of Microsoft getting into use. They added up Net meeting for the video facility with MSN IM. Net meeting was a part of Windows ’98 and was in use independently. Like many other IMs, MSN offers messages to mobile devices, phone calls from a prepared site on cheaper rates and games too.

One of the attractions of these IMs is that they are free for Netizens and are regularly updated, with newer versions which have more features. Most of then have file transfer facilities, apart from audio and video. The file transfers are instantaneous and can ferry huge amount of data, including video, instantly from computer to computer across the world.

Yahoo! is one of the popular e-mail ids, next to Hotmail. They too have an IM, which is user-friendly, and voice and video activated. Its chat-rooms are more or less the regular ones like MSN communities or AOL. It has all that messaging facilities and had introduced a free-phone facility in the beginning of the year but now you have to pay for it. Yahoo! has a unique facility of archiving chats and also a good offline message facility like Paltalk.

America on Line (AOL) IM is another easy to use instant messenger. It can be freely downloaded from AOL site, aol.com. This too offers many facilities like file transfer and direct connection transfer. It can also transfer files and play with buddy and exchange files and pictures. AOL still does not believe in video and but has a good audio connection facility. It has a list of buddies that you can keep and you can also go to various AOL buddy chats, like in almost all IMs. And you can send greeting cards at your will too from the IMs itself.

The common feature of these IMs includes a list of buddies or pals as they say. The buddies are categorised into friends, co-workers and family members most of the time and has an alert facility, which will tell you whether they are online when you too are. Many have the facility of blocking intruders and warning you to keep your privacy while you chat.

All messengers allow you to put up your profile for others. This enables persons of similar interest to know each other before messaging. ICQ allows searching out similar interests from all over the world with its own search engine. AOL searches out from its various profiles. Paltalk gives an option to meet in a room and then may be know each other better before going private.

All these IMs are offered as free downloads now. MSN offers with every Hotmail account, the IM download. Yahoo! too offers its messenger download from its mail facility. But for Paltak and AOL you need to go to their respective dotcoms and download the same. The same is for eyeball.com. The way IMs are adding facilities, it is not far when they would start pricing it. Paltlak already asks $14 for a banner and pop up free connections.

Then there is cuseeme.com, which is used by Benjamin Franklin Institute of Distance Education, for teacher-student communications. There are innumerable camwares used across the world. Many of them are used as reality TVs with voice and chat facilities. But unfortunately they still are used to cater to various pornographic interests rather than communication interests.

With the VOIP and telephone exchanges in India becoming data carriers and voice becoming one among the features in instant messaging, IMs threaten to take on the conventional phone, that too at the local call rate. IMs as a communication tool promises to further revolutionise interpersonal communications across the world.