I use this very rarely. There's only a couple of people that I use this feature with.

For the very same reason I'm big into using the internet for my emailing. It's easy to keep in touch with the crazy amount of people that I talk to, especially those that are living out-of-state.

As with probably many, I was originally somewhat taken by instant messaging with internet contacts. The technology was new (or at least to me) and exciting. However, as other comments have noted, IM's quickly became burdensome with overeager users and cham (i.e. chat spam). Some years back I uninstalled the utilities and didn't miss it. I've recently reinstalled Yahoo! Messenger to see if the environment has improved, so we'll see. The bottom line is that there are many better ways to spend time on a computer other than IM's.

In the chatrooms, its the same as chatting almost. it can be used on an away basis as well, thus its about the same as email. It's fun to hook up with someone and have a private chat with them outside the chatroom. Unfortunately, the chatrooms and IM have been abused and bombarded by spammers. Can't there be any part of the WWW fre of advertisement?

Instant messaging's great, it saves you all kinds of phone calls. It doesn't tend to save you time though; you'll sign on to talk to one buddy for two seconds about what time you're meeting up for golf later and then you get caught up in the IM loop with 8 windows open and you're late to work but you have to say bye to everyone and then as you've got almost all your boxes closed two new people IM you and the process starts all over again and it can really start to make you go crazy and when you finally go back into the outside world you find your brain thinking in lol's, brb's, omg's, wtf's, btw's...

I love IM, instant conversation and nothing to fork out. This is my main way of keeping in contact with people and its even better since we got broadband.

I used to instant message but got rid of AOL instant message when we dumped AOL. Besides I usually had people blocked because they bugged me when I wanted to do other stuff.

Ah the wonders of instant messaging! Years ago I was on ICQ, I thought it was the best thing to come around since sliced bread. But then, after the owner of my ISP had someone hack into their system, I was told to abandon the use of the instant messenger because it could leave even the tightest firewall open to penetration. So, I gave it up for many years. Then I added another sever on my list of dial ups, and with this one I decided to download MSN. I’ve enjoyed it, all though, I seldom kick it up anymore. I have enjoyed the voice chat on this one as it helps me save long distance charges when calling my sister that lives in another country.

I used to mess with people all the time on ICQ; now I can't stand having it on my computer. Unless I was supremely bored, I won't use instant messenger services again. Why? Too many fake people spewing insults and trivial nonsense. I prefer meeting intelligent people on the net and having meaningful conversations, not the usual "how R U?" "mmmm ok" "kewl whut r u wearing?" "my plaid school dress silly" etc etc. IM is the refuge of sickos, mostly.

Its a very convienient tool for communicating with long distance friends or relatives, but I much prefer talking on the phone if I am going to talk to someone who lives so far away, even if the phone bill is a bit high. I mainly communicate with friends online by e-mail rather than instant messaging. Besides, there are so many idiots on the internet today instant messaging me with insults, etc.

Extremely useful for long-distance communication; it sure cuts down on long-distance phone bills. But, I only talk to one person out-of-state, so most of my IMS are about ten lines long, telling them to either A) call me, or B) meet me somewhere. IMs used to be very addictive, it sure beat chat rooms, but I still prefer the phone over this, and even more, I prefer hanging out face-to-face.

Instant Messaging is one of my major forms of communication nowadays.

I love instant messaging. It's good for keeping in touch with family and friends, it's free, and it's fun to use. What's not to like?

At first I thought this was a fabulous invention; "Goodbye phone I don't need ya anymore". The only problem is when you collect a bunch of people on your instant messanger that you don't plan to ever have a conversation to, you want to erease them but figure it's too rude so instead you just make yourself "offline" or "busy" or something to that effect. Then you start talking to one of the peole you do want to talk to and find out that the conversation is pretty slow because there really isn't too much on can say. The upside however is that they can't see you trying to come up with an interesting conversation. So all in all, it's a good thing when you actually have something to say, otherwise it's just like a phoneconversation but better.

Just moving to a new city I have to keep in touch. What better way then to use the Internet. It's cost effective and personal (to some extent) though there isn't quiet anything like actually seeing your family at very least you can talk real time if you both have fast connections. I heard something about the tele-giants trying to disband internet communications like IPhone and what not because it's cutting into their sales but until that day comes I will be talking long distance for cents on the dollar. If you havent heard of IPhone and other free real time voice communications there is a wonderful selection at Cnet and Zdnet.

IMing has been more fun then helpful. Sometimes, you'd get sick of talking to that person that you won't log onto it anymore but it's also helpful in case that IM (like MSN and YIM) brings you e-mail alerts. IMing with two people at the same time is sure confusing, so it's a good thing that IM programs decided to put on "Invisible" modes so that you could avoid this from happening. But if everyone is on Invisible, how would you know if someone's Online? Gee... this is confusing. I do enjoy playing with the IMvironment on Yahoo! thou'... but I hate it if a random person talks to me on ICQ out of the blue and have hard time blocking him/her.

I find messenger a combination of good and evil. It's good that you can talk to someone while your doing something else on the computer especially if your phone line is tied up. But it is bad when you"re talking to a friend and another sees you on there and wants to talk to you also, having two seperate conversations is difficult.

It's a killer application of the Internet, but oh so distracting. I have lost entire days IMing with people about pointless stuff. I have friends that I have had to block because they feel the need to IM you every time they see you online. Friend:"hey, what's up." Me: "I just talked to you on the phone, 5 minutes ago. What could possibly be new? Friend:"uhhh, I don't know, I just saw you online."