Quick, pick the best IM

Once, e-mail was hip. Then came the internet and, with it, instant messaging or IM as it is popularly called. IM changed the way people communicated.

Communication actually came close to becoming real time. Coupled with a web camera, IM was the poor man's way of coming close to having a video conference.

Interestingly, the recession saw companies with dedicated bandwidth using IM to cut communication costs.

Close to 70 per cent of all enterprises will use IM in some form this year, according to market research firm Gartner. IDC, the market research company, estimates that 29 per cent of traffic on today's consumer networks (AOL, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo!) is for business use.

The consumer services, however, don't offer the features "� security, archiving, auditing, encryption and logging "� that businesses need. And for some organisations, these are more than just handy extras.

Some of these IM tools are proprietary like MSN Messenger 6 or Yahoo! Messenger. That is, you can chat with your friend or colleague only if he or she is logged on to the same IM application. Some other IM tools like GAIM and Everbuddy ensure that it does not matter whether your chat friend is on which tool.

So which IM is the best? We look at some of the leading IMs in the market.

AOL Instant Messenger "� AIM: With more than 200 million registered accounts, the AOL Instant Messenger Version 5.2 is the most popular IM tool in the world.

It can exchange messages with both Apple's iChat and ICQ Lite. Known popularly as AIM, the tool is the most popular choice for sending basic text messages across the web.

But AIM is not the most complete IM tool. When it comes to privacy protection, message archiving, alternative communication methods and additional tools, AIM isn't nearly as effective as its biggest competitors, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.

AIM has several extras "� the ability to change fonts and background colors and to post your own Buddy icon, a small, representative image that will pop up on a friend's screen whenever the two of you chat.

AIM also helps you embed hyperlinks, emoticons (icons that show emotions like anger, happiness, tears), images and sound files. It also lets you exchange PC files and send SMS messages to cell phones.

AIM's main drawback is that it is not as good as what the competition offers. A user can send and receive files, but only one at a time. Users can't log on as "invisible," hiding their online status. Nor can they send an IM to someone who's offline.

ICQ: This was the first instant messaging service and was developed by a small Israeli company called Mirabilis in July 1996 and later purchased by AOL in 1998.

It offers two IMs: ICQ Lite, designed for new users, and ICQ Pro, for advanced users. But both these have inherent problems that make what the competition offers more attractive.

This is not to say that ICQ is not popular. In 2002, nearly 18 million people had ICQ accounts, according to research firm IDC. The latest version of ICQ Lite can exchange messages with AOL's AIM client and Apple's iChat.

But both offerings from ICQ are insignificant when compared to what AIM, MSN Messenger, or Yahoo! Messenger have to offer. While MSN and Yahoo! products offer simple, intuitive interfaces, using ICQ Pro, in contrast, is a nightmare.

Still, when you first install the ICQ software, it automatically integrates with the Outlook e-mail client and one can import contacts from the Outlook address book into the ICQ contacts list. One can also send e-mail from the same window used for IM very easily.

MSN Messenger 6.1: The latest IM service on the internet, MSN Messenger 6.1, is also the slickest.

It offers just as many tools as Yahoo! Messenger, but in certain crucial places it is more effective and easier to use. You can send and receive IMs, streaming audio and streaming video all in the same window.

MSN Messenger is eminently intuitive. The pull-down menus across the top of the chat window are carefully organised and you can access most functions from well-labeled links on the face of the window or from right-click menus on contacts in your buddy list.

This list is particularly easy to manage; it lets you quickly sort your contacts or import new contacts from external files. But finding new friends to chat with is harder than with the other two services, partly because MSN Chat, Hotmail, and Messenger account names can all be different.

The best part of MSN Messenger, however, is its tight integration of various communications tools. You can receive a streaming video feed "� and view a feed you're sending to someone "� from the same window you use for chatting.

MSN Messenger also offers several tools for customising its interface. Users of Windows XP and the MSN online service get preferential treatment: Win XP users can share applications via MSN Messenger, and MSN subscribers can share web pages browsing in tandem.

Though AIM is by far the most popular IM service, MSN Messenger is the most technically and visually impressive.

Yahoo! Messenger: Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger offer similar features, but Yahoo! has a cleaner interface and tighter integration with other services.

While MSN Messenger uses the same window, Yahoo! Messenger uses separate windows for sending and receiving streaming video.

Yahoo! Messenger is the third most popular IM on the internet, behind AIM and MSN Messenger.

Yahoo Messenger comes loaded with communications tools of its own. Yahoo! Messenger also integrates well with Yahoo! Mail, Address Book, Calendar, News, Weather, and Stock Portfolio. You can send and receive streaming audio, streaming video and files.

As with the other services, Yahoo! Messenger lets you send SMS messages to mobile phones. And with a Net2Phone account, you can make internet phone calls from the IM window. Yahoo also has archiving software that can be used to record IM activities.

On the more frivolous side, Yahoo! Messenger offers IMVironments. Many of these are simply background wallpapers for your chat window, but others include built-in games. Though not without its faults, Yahoo! Messenger is certainly worth consideration.

GAIM: This is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.

GAIM users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously.

This means that you can be chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger, and sitting in an IRC (Internet Relay Chat - a chat system that enables people connected anywhere on the internet to join in live discussions.) channel all at the same time.

GAIM supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer (coming soon), away messages, typing notification and MSN window closing notification.

It also goes beyond that and provides many unique features. A few popular features are Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plug ins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, and more.

Gaim runs on a number of platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Qtopia (Sharp Zaurus and iPaq).

Gaim integrates well with GNOME 2 and KDE 3.1's system tray, as well as Windows's own system tray. This allows you to work with GAIM without requiring the buddy list window to be up at all times.

Gaim is under constant development and releases are usually frequent. The latest news regarding Gaim can be found on the news page.

So which of these IMs should you pick? Definitely GAIM! Why? For its pure ease of use.

GAIM is multi-protocol, saves you the hassle of logging on to different IM tools, and at the end I can communicate with all my friends and colleagues irrespective of whether they are logged on to the same messaging tool as I have.