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Ok, here are a few of the popular IM's:
- AOL IM: This one isn't nearly as good as ICQ. You can't send
offline messages or file transfers, and there's no difference between an
instant message and a chat. Basically, all you have is a chat window that
gets updated when the person sends you a messgae. Pretty junky.
- Pow-wow: Here's a decent alternative to ICQ. You can do chats,
and sort-of send offline messages. Offline messages actually go to them
through email or something-- I couldn't quite figure it out. The chat does
have one really sweet feature though: it takes the text that's sent across
to you into voice! It's a pretty smart voice engine too-- recognizes stuff
like "huh?" and "duh" and all the normal words I don't want to put in a
webpage. :)
- Yahoo Pager: Okish IM. You can't send offline msgs or file
xfers, and you have to have a yahoo mail account to use it! Yuck.
- Infoseek Peoplelink: This one's pretty bad. Poor interface,
although you can divide your contact list into friends, family, etc. This
feature was implemented in ICQ99, so it's no longer a feature to switch IM's
over.
As you can probably tell, ICQ is the way to go. AOL's is popular because of
the number of subscribers. Of course, if all your friends are on aol, you
might as well go with their IM. If not though, why not join the 30 million
users on ICQ?
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