Comments on: IM now or IM later http://west-penwith.org.uk/blog/archives/18 A soggy blog by Rick Parsons Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:37:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: julian http://west-penwith.org.uk/blog/archives/18/comment-page-1#comment-12 julian Sun, 06 Nov 2005 22:24:41 +0000 http://west-penwith.org.uk/blog/archives/18#comment-12 Part of the point of my article is that there are at least three different perceived message types—email, short messages, and chat messages. There are a lot of things that I'd be willing to send to a person in a chat message or a short message that I'm not willing to bother sending an email for. This is why I think offline messaging is important—if it's something you definitely want archived you'll send an email no matter what, but if it's just a quick little link to something transient, it's more likely to go in an IM message. The technical differences between an offline IM and an email aren't nearly as important as the UI differences. Technically, there should be little difference, yes. But technically, people who used to send offline messages should still do so when they use iChat—but they don't. Part of the point of my article is that there are at least three different perceived message types—email, short messages, and chat messages. There are a lot of things that I’d be willing to send to a person in a chat message or a short message that I’m not willing to bother sending an email for. This is why I think offline messaging is important—if it’s something you definitely want archived you’ll send an email no matter what, but if it’s just a quick little link to something transient, it’s more likely to go in an IM message.

The technical differences between an offline IM and an email aren’t nearly as important as the UI differences. Technically, there should be little difference, yes. But technically, people who used to send offline messages should still do so when they use iChat—but they don’t.

]]>