Misplaced Pages

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100-460: Comic Chat's main feature, which set it apart from other IRC clients, is that it enabled comic avatars to represent a user; this character could express a specified emotion, possibly making IRC chatting a more emotive and expressive experience. All of the comic characters and backgrounds were initially created by comic artist Jim Woodring . Later, tools became available that allowed user-created characters and backgrounds. Comic Chat started out as

200-513: A microphone , videotelephony using webcams , file transfer, location sharing, image and video transfer, voice notes, and other features. IM is conducted over the Internet or other types of networks (see also LAN messenger ). Depending on the IM protocol, the technical architecture can be peer-to-peer (direct point-to-point transmission) or client–server (when all clients have to first connect to

300-457: A CIM provides the advantage of being inexpensive to implement and has little need for investing in new hardware or server software. IM is increasingly becoming a feature of enterprise software rather than a stand-alone application. Instant messaging has proven to be similar to personal computers, email, and the World Wide Web , in that its adoption for use as a business communications medium

400-537: A Latin letter "+o"/"o"). On most networks, an operator can: There are also users who maintain elevated rights on their local server, or the entire network; these are called IRC operators, sometimes shortened to IRCops or Opers (not to be confused with channel operators). As the implementation of the IRCd varies, so do the privileges of the IRC operator on the given IRCd. RFC 1459 claims that IRC operators are "a necessary evil" to keep

500-424: A chat, including games like Tetris and Blackjack . Discord features multiple games built inside the "activities" tab in voice channels . A relatively new feature to the world of instant messaging, peer-to-peer payments are available to do both financial tasks on top of communication. The lack of a service fee also makes these advantageous to financial applications. IM services such as Facebook Messenger and

600-732: A clean state of the network, and as such they need to be able to disconnect and reconnect servers. Additionally, to prevent malicious users or even harmful automated programs from entering IRC, IRC operators are usually allowed to disconnect clients and completely ban IP addresses or complete subnets. Networks that carry services (NickServ et al.) usually allow their IRC operators also to handle basic "ownership" matters. Further privileged rights may include overriding channel bans (being able to join channels they would not be allowed to join, if they were not opered), being able to op themselves on channels where they would not be able without being opered, being auto-opped on channels always and so forth. A hostmask

700-416: A common solution is to use IRCv3 "multi-prefix" extension. Many daemons and networks have added extra modes or modified the behavior of modes in the above list. A channel operator is a client on an IRC channel that manages the channel. IRC channel operators can be easily seen by the symbol or icon next to their name (varies by client implementation, commonly a "@" symbol prefix, a green circle, or

800-480: A component of their overall platform, such as Facebook 's Facebook Messenger , who also own WhatsApp . Others have a direct IM function as an additional adjunct component of their social networking platforms , like Instagram , Reddit , Tumblr , TikTok , Clubhouse and Twitter ; this also includes for example dating websites , such as OkCupid or Plenty of Fish , and online gaming chat platforms. Private chat allows private conversation with another person or

900-524: A contract with Cars.com. The online chat show ended at that time. Microsoft Comic Chat installed a custom font, Comic Sans MS , that users could use in other applications and documents. In 1996 it was bundled with several other fonts in Microsoft's Core Fonts for the Web project and subsequent versions of Microsoft Windows , leading to its notoriety among the digerati . It was renamed as Microsoft Chat 2.0 , and

1000-806: A day on Slack, which is about 67% more time than they spend using email . Instant messaging is implemented in many video-conferencing tools. A study of chat use during work-related videoconferencing found that chat during meetings allows participants to communicate without interrupting the meeting, plan action around common resources, and enables greater inclusion. The study also found that chat can cause distractions and information asymmetries between participants. Users sometimes make use of internet slang or text speak to abbreviate common words or expressions to quicken conversations or reduce keystrokes. The language has become widespread, with well-known expressions such as ' lol ' translated over to face-to-face language. Emotions are often expressed in shorthand, such as

1100-439: A group. The privacy aspect can also be enhanced in a number of ways such as end to end encryption by default. Public and group chat features allow users to communicate with multiple people at a time. Many major IM services and applications offer a call feature for user-to-user voice calls, conference calls, and voice messages. The call functionality is useful for professionals who utilize the application for work purposes and as

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1200-412: A hands-free method. Videotelephony using a webcam is also possible by some. Some IM applications include in-app games for entertainment. Yahoo! Messenger for example introduced these where users could play a game and viewed by friends in real-time. MSN Messenger featured a number of playable games within the interface. Facebook's Messenger has had a built in option to play games with people in

1300-420: A network of IRC servers is a tree . Messages are routed along only necessary branches of the tree but network state is sent to every server and there is generally a high degree of implicit trust between servers. However, this architecture has a number of problems. A misbehaving or malicious server can cause major damage to the network and any changes in structure, whether intentional or a result of conditions on

1400-1042: A new platform called Microsoft Office Live Communications Server , and released Office Communications Server 2007 in October 2007. Oracle Corporation also jumped into the market with its Oracle Beehive unified collaboration software. Both IBM Lotus and Microsoft have introduced federation between their EIM systems and some of the public IM networks so that employees may use one interface to both their internal EIM system and their contacts on AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. As of 2010, leading EIM platforms include IBM Lotus Sametime , Microsoft Office Communications Server , Jabber XCP and Cisco Unified Presence. Industry-focused EIM platforms such as Reuters Messaging and Bloomberg Messaging also provide IM abilities to financial services companies. Crackers (malicious or black hat hackers) have consistently used IM networks as vectors for delivering phishing attempts, drive-by URLs , and virus-laden file attachments, with over 1100 discrete attacks listed by

1500-410: A notable new example of traditional IM originally designed for desktops. Most IM protocols are proprietary and are not designed to be interoperable with others, meaning that many IM networks have been incompatible and users have been unable to reach users on other networks. As of 2024, fragmentation of IM services means that a typical user is likely to have to use more networks than ever, including

1600-434: A reported 100 million users of instant messaging in 2001. As of 2003, AIM was the globally most popular instant messenger with 195 million users and exchanges of 1.6 billion messages daily. By 2006, AIM controlled 52 percent of the instant messaging market, but rapidly declined shortly thereafter as the company struggled to compete with other services. Instant messaging integrated in other services started picking up pace in

1700-505: A research project, and a paper describing the technology was published at SIGGRAPH '96. It was an experiment in automatic illustration construction and layout. The algorithms used in Comic Chat attempted to mimic some basic illustration techniques of comic artists (particularly Jim Woodring ). Character placement, the choice of gestures and expressions, and word balloon construction and layout, were all chosen automatically. A widget called

1800-416: A separately installed piece of software, or a browser-based client. They are normally centralised networks run by the servers of the platform's operators, unlike peer-to-peer protocols like XMPP . These usually only work within the same IM network, although some allow limited function with other services (see #Interoperability ). Third party client software applications exist that will connect with most of

1900-412: A server or the entire network), IRCop only communications: GlobOps, +H mode showing that an IRCop is a "helpop" etc. Much of DALnet's new functions were written in early 1995 by Brian "Morpher" Smith and allow users to own nicknames, control channels, send memos, and more. In July 1996, after months of flame wars and discussions on the mailing list, there was yet another split due to disagreement in how

2000-500: A server use '&'. Other less common channel types include '+' channels—'modeless' channels without operators —and '!' channels, a form of timestamped channel on normally non-timestamped networks. Users and channels may have modes that are represented by individual case-sensitive letters and are set using the MODE command. User modes and channel modes are separate and can use the same letter to mean different things (e.g. user mode "i"

2100-404: A show-based format, in which high quality multimedia content was produced around several themes. MSN's MotorWeb was built around an automobile theme. MSN entered into a partnership with NPR ’s CarTalk , and each day featured a new online Car Talk caller from the popular NPR radio duo of " Click and Clack " (Tom and Ray Magliozzi). Created and produced at MSN by Mike Klozar, the "Chat Show," as it

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2200-593: A type of graphical user interface (GUI), albeit much more primitive than the later Unix , Windows and Macintosh based GUI IM software. OLMs were what Q-Link called "Plus Services" meaning they charged an extra per-minute fee on top of the monthly Q-Link access costs. Development of the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol began in 1989, and this would become the Internet's first widespread instant messaging standard. Modern, Internet-wide, GUI -based messaging clients as they are known today, began to take off in

2300-773: A unified standard. In 2022, the European Union passed the Digital Markets Act , which largely came into effect in early 2023. Among other things, the legislation mandates certain interoperability between the largest IM platforms in use in Europe. As a result, in March 2024, Meta Platforms opened up its WhatsApp and Messenger networks to be interoperable. There are two ways to combine the many disparate protocols: Some approaches allow organizations to deploy their own, private instant messaging network by enabling them to restrict access to

2400-476: A unique closed visual chat. The visuals were generated dynamically by the Comic Chat client (already residing on the PC), given a timed, textual transcript of the show. This allowed an online comic strip to draw in exact timing with the audio/dialogue that was streamed via Real Audio (14.4 modems were the norm at this time). The show ran for one year. MSN moved away from the "show" format the following year, and CarTalk signed

2500-560: A user is affiliated with a group or project. Instant messaging Instant messaging ( IM ) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time ) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network . Originally involving simple text message exchanges, modern IM applications and services (also called "social messengers", "messaging apps", "chat apps" or "chat clients") tend to also feature

2600-419: Is a unique identifier of an IRC client connected to an IRC server . IRC servers , services , and other clients, including bots , can use it to identify a specific IRC session. The format of a hostmask is nick!user@host . The hostmask looks similar to, but should not be confused with an e-mail address . The nick part is the nickname chosen by the user and may be changed while connected. The user part

2700-406: Is delivered in a fashion similar to multicast , meaning each message travels a network link exactly once. This is a strength in comparison to non-multicasting protocols such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) or Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) . An IRC daemon can be used on a local area network (LAN). IRC can thus be used to facilitate communication between people within

2800-541: Is implemented as an application layer protocol to facilitate communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a client–server networking model . Users connect, using a client—which may be a web app , a standalone desktop program , or embedded into part of a larger program—to an IRC server, which may be part of a larger IRC network. Examples of programs used to connect include Mibbit , IRCCloud , KiwiIRC , and mIRC . IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60 percent of its users. In April 2011,

2900-443: Is in direct contrast to email , where conversations are not in real-time, and the perceived quasi- synchrony of the communications by the users (although many systems allow users to send offline messages that the other user receives when logging in). Earlier IM networks were limited to text-based communication, not dissimilar to mobile text messaging . As technology has moved forward, IM has expanded to include voice calling using

3000-422: Is invisible mode while channel mode "i" is invite only. ) Modes are usually set and unset using the mode command that takes a target (user or channel), a set of modes to set (+) or unset (-) and any parameters the modes need. Some channel modes take parameters and other channel modes apply to a user on a channel or add or remove a mask (e.g. a ban mask) from a list associated with the channel rather than applying to

3100-474: Is the username reported by ident on the client. If ident is not available on the client, the username specified when the client connected is used after being prefixed with a tilde . The host part is the hostname the client is connecting from. If the IP address of the client cannot be resolved to a valid hostname by the server, it is used instead of the hostname. Because of the privacy implications of exposing

Microsoft Comic Chat - Misplaced Pages Continue

3200-411: The U.S. patent office . Meanwhile, other companies developed their own software; ( Excite , Microsoft (MSN) , Ubique , and Yahoo! ), each with its own proprietary protocol and client ; users therefore had to run multiple client applications if they wished to use more than one of these networks. However, the open protocol IRC continued to be popular by the millenium, and its most popular graphical app

3300-546: The WeChat ' super-app ' for example offer a payment feature. Though the term dates from the 1990s, instant messaging predates the Internet, first appearing on multi-user operating systems like Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) and Multiplexed Information and Computing Service ( Multics ) in the mid-1960s. Initially, some of these systems were used as notification systems for services like printing, but quickly were used to facilitate communication with other users logged into

3400-449: The Windows 98 and Windows 2000 distributions. It also became the official chat client of MSN . It was localized into 24 different languages. Although the program can still be downloaded and still works with most IRC servers, it is infrequently used today because MSN decided to get out of the chat business, and turned off its servers. In December 1996, The Microsoft Network introduced

3500-498: The server (often with the IM network entirely behind their firewall ) and administer user permissions. Other corporate messaging systems allow registered users to also connect from outside the corporation LAN, by using an encrypted, firewall-friendly, HTTPS-based protocol. Usually, a dedicated corporate IM server has several advantages, such as pre-populated contact lists, integrated authentication, and better security and privacy. Instant messaging has changed how people communicate in

3600-466: The "emotion wheel" allowed users to override the program's choice of expression. Although Comic Chat could be used in text-based chat rooms as well, it added a code at the beginning of every message to communicate the character's expression to other chat clients. This had a somewhat annoying effect on non-Comic Chat users (although it could be disabled). Comic Chat was released with the full downloads of Internet Explorer 3 , 4 , and 5 , as well as in

3700-515: The 1980s, some systems incorporated chat features which were similar to instant messaging; Freelancin' Roundtable was one prime example. The first such general-availability commercial online chat service (as opposed to PLATO, which was educational) was the CompuServe CB Simulator in 1980, created by CompuServe executive Alexander "Sandy" Trevor in Columbus, Ohio . As networks developed,

3800-414: The 1990s, ICQ was among the first closed and commercialized instant messengers, and several rival services appeared afterwards as it became a popular use of the Internet. Beginning with its first introduction in 2005, BlackBerry Messenger became the first popular example of mobile -based IM, combining features of traditional IM and mobile SMS . Instant messaging remains very popular today; IM apps are

3900-804: The EFnet ircd version 2.8.10). It was meant to be just a test network to develop bots on but it quickly grew to a network "for friends and their friends". In Europe and Canada a separate new network was being worked on and in December the French servers connected to the Canadian ones, and by the end of the month, the French and Canadian network was connected to the US one, forming the network that later came to be called "The Undernet ". The "undernetters" wanted to take ircd further in an attempt to make it use less bandwidth and to try to sort out

4000-540: The Finnish network. They had obtained the program from one of Oikarinen's friends, Vijay Subramaniam—the first non-Finnish person to use IRC. IRC then grew larger and got used on the entire Finnish national network— FUNET —and then connected to Nordunet , the Scandinavian branch of the Internet. In November 1988, IRC had spread across the Internet and in the middle of 1989, there were some 40 servers worldwide. In August 1990,

4100-550: The IM Security Center in 2004–2007. Hackers use two methods of delivering malicious code through IM: delivery of viruses, trojan horses , or spyware within an infected file, and the use of "socially engineered" text with a web address that entices the recipient to click on a URL connecting him or her to a website that then downloads malicious code. IM connections sometimes occur in plain text , making them vulnerable to eavesdropping. Also, IM client software often requires

Microsoft Comic Chat - Misplaced Pages Continue

4200-532: The IP address or hostname of a client, some IRC daemons also provide privacy features, such as InspIRCd or UnrealIRCd's "+x" mode. This hashes a client IP address or masks part of a client's hostname, making it unreadable to users other than IRCops . Users may also have the option of requesting a "virtual host" (or "vhost"), to be displayed in the hostmask to allow further anonymity. Some IRC networks, such as Libera Chat or Freenode , use these as "cloaks" to indicate that

4300-471: The IRC command LIST , which lists all currently available channels that do not have the modes +s or +p set, on that particular network. Users can join a channel using the JOIN command, in most clients available as /join #channelname . Messages sent to the joined channels are then relayed to all other users. Channels that are available across an entire IRC network are prefixed with a '#', while those local to

4400-417: The IRC network. Users access IRC networks by connecting a client to a server. There are many client implementations, such as mIRC , HexChat and irssi , and server implementations, e.g. the original IRCd . Most IRC servers do not require users to register an account but a nickname is required before being connected. IRC was originally a plain text protocol (although later extended), which on request

4500-401: The IRC protocol have been published, there is no official specification, as the protocol remains dynamic. Virtually no clients and very few servers rely strictly on the above RFCs as a reference. Microsoft made an extension for IRC in 1998 via the proprietary IRCX . They later stopped distributing software supporting IRCX, instead developing the proprietary MSNP . The standard structure of

4600-463: The Internet. New server software has added a multitude of new features. As of 2016 , a new standardization effort is under way under a working group called IRCv3, which focuses on more advanced client features such as instant notifications, better history support and improved security. As of 2019 , no major IRC networks have fully adopted the proposed standard. As of June 2021, there are 481 different IRC networks known to be operating, of which

4700-509: The Quantum Link client software ran on a Commodore 64 , using only the Commodore's PETSCII text-graphics, the screen was visually divided into sections and OLMs would appear as a yellow bar saying "Message From:" and the name of the sender along with the message across the top of whatever the user was already doing, and presented a list of options for responding. As such, it could be considered

4800-451: The US side. Most (not all) of the IRCnet servers were in Europe, while most of the EFnet servers were in the US. This event is also known as "The Great Split" in many IRC societies. EFnet has since (as of August 1998) grown and passed the number of users it had then. In the (northern) autumn of the year 2000, EFnet had some 50,000 users and IRCnet 70,000. IRC has changed much over its life on

4900-773: The Unix "talk" command line program, which was popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some BBS chat programs (i.e. Celerity BBS ) also used a similar interface. Modern implementations of real-time text also exist in instant messengers, such as AOL's Real-Time IM as an optional feature. In the latter half of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the Quantum Link online service for Commodore 64 computers offered user-to-user messages between concurrently connected customers, which they called "On-Line Messages" (or OLM for short), and later "FlashMail." Quantum Link later became America Online and made AOL Instant Messenger (AIM, discussed later). While

5000-414: The abbreviation LOL , BRB and TTYL ; respectively laugh(ing) out loud, be right back, and talk to you later. Some, however, attempt to be more accurate with emotional expression over IM. Real time reactions such as ( chortle ) ( snort ) ( guffaw ) or ( eye-roll ) have been popular at one point. Also there are certain standards that are being introduced into mainstream conversations including, '#' indicates

5100-591: The central server). Major IM services are controlled by their corresponding companies and usually follow the client–server model. The term "Instant Messenger" is a service mark of Time Warner and may not be used in software not affiliated with AOL in the United States. For this reason, in April 2007, the instant messaging client formerly named Gaim (or gaim) announced that they would be renamed " Pidgin ". Modern IM services generally provide their own client, either

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5200-444: The channel as a whole. Modes that apply to users on a channel have an associated symbol that is used to represent the mode in names replies (sent to clients on first joining a channel and use of the names command) and in many clients also used to represent it in the client's displayed list of users in a channel or to display an own indicator for a user's modes. In order to correctly parse incoming mode messages and track channel state

5300-526: The channel chaos ( netsplits and takeovers ) that EFnet started to suffer from. For the latter purpose, the Undernet implemented timestamps, new routing and offered the CService—a program that allowed users to register channels and then attempted to protect them from troublemakers. The first server list presented, from 15 February 1993, includes servers from the U.S., Canada, France, Croatia and Japan. On 15 August,

5400-418: The client does not recognize) passed directly to the server, possibly with some modification. Due to the nature of the protocol, automated systems cannot always correctly pair a sent command with its reply with full reliability and are subject to guessing. The basic means of communicating to a group of users in an established IRC session is through a channel . Channels on a network can be displayed using

5500-455: The client must know which mode is of which type and for the modes that apply to a user on a channel which symbol goes with which letter. In early implementations of IRC this had to be hard-coded in the client but there is now a de facto standard extension to the protocol called ISUPPORT that sends this information to the client at connect time using numeric 005. There is a small design fault in IRC regarding modes that apply to users on channels:

5600-489: The community nature of IRC there are a large number of other networks for users to choose from. Historically the "Big Four" were: IRC reached 6 million simultaneous users in 2001 and 10 million users in 2004–2005, dropping to around 350k in 2021. The top 100 IRC networks have around 230k users connected at peak hours. Timeline of major networks: IRC is an open protocol that uses TCP and, optionally, TLS . An IRC server can connect to other IRC servers to expand

5700-495: The corporation. Similar to the e-mail filtering vendors, the IM security providers focus on the risks and liabilities described above. With rapid adoption of IM in the workplace, demand for IM security products began to grow in the mid-2000s. By 2007, the preferred platform for the purchase of security software had become the " computer appliance ", according to IDC, who estimated that by 2008, 80% of network security products would be delivered via an appliance. By 2014 however,

5800-507: The development of the ircd should evolve. Most notably, the "European" (most of those servers were in Europe) side that later named itself IRCnet argued for nick and channel delays whereas the EFnet side argued for timestamps. There were also disagreements about policies: the European side had started to establish a set of rules directing what IRCops could and could not do, a point of view opposed by

5900-457: The exchange of multimedia, emojis , file transfer , VoIP (voice calling) , and video chat capabilities. Instant messaging systems facilitate connections between specified known users (often using a contact list also known as a "buddy list" or "friend list") or in chat rooms , and can be standalone apps or integrated into a wider social media platform, or in a website where it can for instance be used for conversational commerce . Originally

6000-399: The first major disagreement took place in the IRC world. The "A-net" (Anarchy net) included a server named eris.berkeley.edu. It was all open, required no passwords and had no limit on the number of connects. As Greg "wumpus" Lindahl explains: "it had a wildcard server line, so people were hooking up servers and nick-colliding everyone". The "Eris Free Network", EFnet , made the eris machine

6100-451: The first to be Q-lined (Q for quarantine) from IRC. In wumpus' words again: "Eris refused to remove that line, so I formed EFnet. It wasn't much of a fight; I got all the hubs to join, and almost everyone else got carried along." A-net was formed with the eris servers, while EFnet was formed with the non-eris servers. History showed most servers and users went with EFnet. Once A-net disbanded, the name EFnet became meaningless, and once again it

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6200-412: The late 2000s. Myspace , the then-largest social networking service , launched Myspace IM in 2006, shortly after Google 's Gtalk , which was integrated into its Gmail webmail interface. Facebook Chat launched in 2008, providing IM to users of the social network. By 2010, traditional instant messaging was in sharp decline in favor of these new messaging features on wider social networks, which at

6300-562: The level of safety offered by instant messengers was still extremely poor. According to a scorecard made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation , only 7 out of 39 instant messengers received a perfect score, whereas the most popular instant messengers at the time only attained a score of 2 out of 7. A number of studies have shown that IM services are quite vulnerable for providing user privacy. In 2023, cybersecurity researchers discovered that numerous malicious "mods" exist of

6400-405: The local area network (internal communication). IRC has a line-based structure. Clients send single-line messages to the server, receive replies to those messages and receive copies of some messages sent by other clients. In most clients, users can enter commands by prefixing them with a '/'. Depending on the command, these may either be handled entirely by the client, or (generally for commands

6500-785: The major IM services. There is the class of instant messengers that uses the serverless model, which doesn't require servers, and the IM network consists only of clients. There are several serverless messengers: RetroShare , Tox , Bitmessage , Ricochet , Ring . See also: LAN messenger . Some examples of popular IM services today include Signal , Telegram , WhatsApp Messenger , WeChat , QQ Messenger , Viber , Line , and Snapchat . The popularity of certain apps greatly differ between different countries. Certain apps have emphasis on certain uses - for example Skype focuses on video calling , Slack focuses on messaging and file sharing for work teams, and Snapchat focuses on image messages. Some social networking services offer messaging services as

6600-426: The mid-1990s with PowWow , ICQ , and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Similar functionality was offered by CU-SeeMe in 1992; though primarily an audio/video chat link, users could also send textual messages to each other. AOL later acquired Mirabilis , the authors of ICQ; establishing dominance in the instant messaging market. A few years later ICQ (then owned by AOL) was awarded two patents for instant messaging by

6700-457: The most widely used smartphone apps: in 2018 for instance there were 980 million monthly active users of WeChat and 1.3 billion monthly users of WhatsApp , the largest IM network. Instant messaging (IM), sometimes also called "messaging" or " texting ", consists of computer-based human communication between two users ( private messaging ) or more ( chat room or "group") in real-time, allowing immediate receipt of acknowledgment or reply. This

6800-402: The names message used to establish initial channel state can only send one such mode per user on the channel, but multiple such modes can be set on a single user. For example, if a user holds both operator status (+o) and voice status (+v) on a channel, a new client will be unable to see the mode with less priority (i.e. voice). Workarounds for this are possible on both the client and server side;

6900-462: The need for formal agreements, and security concerns as reasons for making changes. There have been several attempts in the past to create a unified standard for instant messaging, including: Critics say AOL's slowness in embracing interoperability has caused setbacks to other companies trying to grow their businesses. AOL has said it supports the development of an interoperable system for all IM networks but has cited privacy and security concerns as

7000-622: The need to download the apps and signing up, to stay in touch with all their contacts. However, there had been attempts for solutions. Multi-protocol clients can use any of the IM protocols by using additional local libraries for each protocol. Examples of multi-protocol instant messenger software include Pidgin and Trillian , and more recently Beeper . These third-party clients have often been unable to keep up due to proprietary protocol restrictions and getting locked out of it. For instance, in 2015 WhatsApp started banning users who were using unofficial clients. Major IM providers usually cite

7100-521: The need to run multiple clients. Video calling using a webcam also started taking off during this time. Microsoft's NetMeeting , which was focused on business " web conferencing ", was one of the earliest; the company then launched Windows Messenger , coming preloaded on Windows XP , featuring video capabilities. Yahoo! Messenger added video capabilities in 2001, and by 2005 such features were built-in also in AIM, MSN Messenger , and Skype . There were

7200-474: The new user count record was set to 57 users. In May 1993, RFC 1459 was published and details a simple protocol for client/server operation, channels, one-to-one and one-to-many conversations. A significant number of extensions like CTCP, colors and formats are not included in the protocol specifications, nor is character encoding, which led various implementations of servers and clients to diverge. Software implementation varied significantly from one network to

7300-574: The open source Libera Chat , founded in May 2021, has the most users, with 20,374 channels on 26 servers; between them, the top 100 IRC networks share over 100 thousand channels operating on about one thousand servers. After its golden era during the 1990s and early 2000s (240,000 users on QuakeNet in 2004), IRC has seen a significant decline, losing around 60% of users between 2003 and 2012, with users moving to social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter , but also to open platforms such as XMPP which

7400-534: The other, each network implementing their own policies and standards in their own code bases. During the summer of 1994, the Undernet was itself forked. The new network was called DALnet (named after its founder: dalvenjah), formed for better user service and more user and channel protections. One of the more significant changes in DALnet was use of longer nicknames (the original ircd limit being 9 letters). DALnet ircd modifications were made by Alexei "Lefler" Kosut. DALnet

7500-497: The protocol implemented in the irc2.4.0 version of the IRC2 server, and documented in RFC 1459. Since RFC 1459 was published, the new features in the irc2.10 implementation led to the publication of several revised protocol documents (RFC 2810, RFC 2811, RFC 2812 and RFC 2813); however, these protocol changes have not been widely adopted among other implementations. Although many specifications on

7600-508: The protocols spread with the networks. Some of these used a peer-to-peer protocol (e.g. talk , ntalk and ytalk), while others required peers to connect to a server (see talker and IRC ). The Zephyr Notification Service (still in use at some institutions) was invented at MIT's Project Athena in the 1980s to allow service providers to locate and send messages to users. Early instant messaging programs were primarily real-time text , where characters appeared as they were typed. This includes

7700-610: The reasons it's taking its time. Competitors have labeled that argument a "smoke screen." In the early 2000s when instant messaging was quickly growing, most attempts at producing a unified standard for the-then major IM providers ( AOL , Yahoo! , Microsoft ) had failed. There was a "bitter row" between AOL and its rivals regarding the opening up of their networks. In 2000, U.S. regulatory Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed, and supported by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates , that AOL providing interoperability of its AIM and ICQ instant messengers with Microsoft's MSN Messenger

7800-465: The same machine. CTSS facilitated communication via text message for up to 30 people. Parallel to instant messaging were early online chat facilities, the earliest of which was Talkomatic (1973) on the PLATO system, which allowed 5 people to chat simultaneously on a 512 x 512 plasma display (5 lines of text + 1 status line per person). During the bulletin board system (BBS) phenomenon that peaked during

7900-483: The term "instant messaging" was distinguished from " text messaging " by being run on a computer network instead of a cellular/mobile network, being able to write longer messages, real-time communication, presence ("status"), and being free (only cost of access instead of per SMS message sent). Instant messaging was pioneered in the early Internet era; the IRC protocol was the earliest to achieve wide adoption. Later in

8000-585: The time were not normally called IM. For instance, AIM 's userbase had declined by more than half throughout the year 2011. Standalone instant messenger services were revived, evolving into becoming primarily being used on mobile due to the increasing use of Internet-enabled cell phones and smartphones . Often called "chat apps", to distinguish it from cellular -based SMS and MMS " texting " services, these newer services were specially designed to be run on mobile platforms, as opposed to older services like AIM and MSN; BlackBerry Messenger , released in 2005,

8100-785: The top 100 IRC networks served more than 200,000 users at a time. IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen in August 1988 to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk) on a BBS called OuluBox at the University of Oulu in Finland , where he was working at the Department of Information Processing Science. Jarkko intended to extend the BBS software he administered, to allow news in the Usenet style, real time discussions and similar BBS features. The first part he implemented

8200-403: The underlying network, require a net-split and net-join. This results in a lot of network traffic and spurious quit/join messages to users and temporary loss of communication to users on the splitting servers. Adding a server to a large network means a large background bandwidth load on the network and a large memory load on the server. Once established, however, each message to multiple recipients

8300-465: The use of sarcasm in a statement and '*' which indicates a spelling mistake and/or grammatical error in the prior message, followed by a correction. Instant messaging products can usually be categorised into two types: Enterprise Instant Messaging (EIM) and Consumer Instant Messaging (CIM). Enterprise solutions use an internal IM server, however this is not always feasible, particularly for smaller businesses with limited budgets. The second option, using

8400-488: The user to expose open UDP ports to the world, raising the threat posed by potential security vulnerabilities. In the early 2000s, a new class of IT security provider emerged to provide remedies for the risks and liabilities faced by corporations who chose to use IM for business communications. The IM security providers created new products to be installed in corporate networks for the purpose of archiving, content-scanning, and security-scanning IM traffic moving in and out of

8500-482: The workplace. Enterprise messaging applications like Slack , TeleMessage , Teamnote and Yammer allow companies to enforce policies on how employees message at work and ensure secure storage of sensitive data. They allow employees to separate work information from their personal emails and texts. Messaging applications may make workplace communication efficient, but they can also have consequences on productivity. A study at Slack showed on average, people spend 10 hours

8600-477: Was mIRC . While instant messaging was mainly in use for consumer recreational purposes, in 1998 IBM launched their Lotus Sametime instant messenger software, the first popular example of enterprise-grade instant messaging. In 2000, an open-source application and open standards -based protocol called Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) was launched, initially branded as Jabber . XMPP servers could act as gateways to other IM protocols, reducing

8700-406: Was a condition for the forecoming AOL-Time Warner merger . However in 2004, Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL agreed to a deal in which Microsoft's enterprise IM server Live Communications Server 2005 would have the possibility to talk to their rival counterparts and vice versa. On October 13, 2005, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that their IM networks would soon be interoperable, using SIP/SIMPLE. This

8800-591: Was assigned port 194/TCP by IANA . However, the de facto standard has always been to run IRC on 6667/TCP and nearby port numbers (for example TCP ports 6660–6669, 7000) to avoid having to run the IRCd software with root privileges . The protocol specified that characters were 8-bit but did not specify the character encoding the text was supposed to use. This can cause problems when users using different clients and/or different platforms want to converse. All client-to-server IRC protocols in use today are descended from

8900-568: Was bundled with Internet Explorer along with the then new Outlook Express , in the late 1990s. Version 2.5 bundled with Internet Explorer 5 was the last update. Microsoft Comic Chat was removed with Internet Explorer 6. IRC IRC ( Internet Relay Chat ) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging . IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels , but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and data transfer , including file sharing . Internet Relay Chat

9000-461: Was called, was an innovative combination of on-demand streaming audio, text (as cartoon bubbles) and comic strip characters all synchronized to display an animated cartoon comic strip created dynamically from the text input. An example of the show can be found at David Kurlander's project site, under [MSN CarTalk Comic Chat Show]. Each episode depicted a caller (as a black and white default character) and color caricatures of Tom & Ray interacting in

9100-444: Was developed in 1999. Certain networks such as Freenode have not followed the overall trend and have more than quadrupled in size during the same period. However, Freenode, which in 2016 had around 90,000 users, has since declined to about 9,300 users. The largest IRC networks have traditionally been grouped as the "Big Four" —a designation for networks that top the statistics. The Big Four networks change periodically, but due to

9200-498: Was driven primarily by individual employees using consumer software at work, rather than by formal mandate or provisioning by corporate information technology departments. Tens of millions of the consumer IM accounts in use are being used for business purposes by employees of companies and other organizations. The adoption of IM across corporate networks outside of the control of IT organizations creates risks and liabilities for companies who do not effectively manage and support IM use. IM

9300-697: Was finally rolled out to Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger users in July 2006. Additionally, in December 2005 by the AOL and Google strategic partnership deal, it was announced that AIM and ICQ users would be able to communicate with Google Talk users. However this feature took until December 2007 to roll out. XMPP provided the best example of open protocol interoperability, having had gateways that connected to Google Talk, Lotus Sametime and others. Later, RCS had been developed by telecommunication companies as an instant messaging protocol to replace SMS , under

9400-493: Was initially shunned by the corporate world partly due to security concerns, but by 2003 many had started embracing these new services. In response to the demand for business-grade IM and the need to ensure security and legal compliance, a new type of instant messaging, called "Enterprise Instant Messaging" ("EIM") was created when Lotus Software launched IBM Lotus Sametime in 1998. Microsoft followed suit shortly thereafter with Microsoft Exchange Instant Messaging, later created

9500-506: Was one of the influential pioneers of mobile IM, and led to other companies launching services with proprietary protocols, such as WhatsApp . Mobile instant messaging surpassed SMS in global message volume by 2013. While SMS relied on traditional paid telephone services, IM apps on mobile were available for free or a minor data charge. Older IM services were eventually shut, including AIM and Yahoo! Messenger, and also Windows Live Messenger , which merged into Skype in 2013. In 2014, it

9600-462: Was reported that instant messaging had more users than social networks. Concurrently, rising use of instant messaging at workplaces led to the creation of new services ( enterprise application integration (EAI)) often integrated with other enterprise applications such as workflow systems, for example in Skype for Business , Slack and Microsoft Teams . Meanwhile, the launch of Discord in 2015 has marked

9700-554: Was the chat part, which he did with borrowed parts written by his friends Jyrki Kuoppala and Jukka Pihl. The first IRC network was running on a single server named tolsun.oulu.fi. Oikarinen found inspiration in a chat system known as Bitnet Relay , which operated on the BITNET . Jyrki Kuoppala pushed Oikarinen to ask Oulu University to free the IRC code so that it also could be run outside of Oulu, and after they finally got it released, Jyrki Kuoppala immediately installed another server. This

9800-561: Was the first "IRC network". Oikarinen got some friends at the Helsinki University of Technology and Tampere University of Technology to start running IRC servers when his number of users increased and other universities soon followed. At this time Oikarinen realized that the rest of the BBS features probably would not fit in his program. Oikarinen contacted people at the University of Denver and Oregon State University . They had their own IRC network running and wanted to connect to

9900-488: Was the one and only IRC network. Around that time IRC was used to report on the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt throughout a media blackout . It was previously used in a similar fashion during the Gulf War . Chat logs of these and other events are kept in the ibiblio archive. Another fork effort, the first that made a lasting difference, was initiated by "Wildthang" in the United States in October 1992. (It forked off

10000-499: Was thus based on the Undernet ircd server, although the DALnet pioneers were EFnet abandoners. According to James Ng, the initial DALnet people were "ops in #StarTrek sick from the constant splits/lags/takeovers/etc". DALnet quickly offered global WallOps (IRCop messages that can be seen by users who are +w (/mode NickName +w)), longer nicknames, Q:Lined nicknames (nicknames that cannot be used i.e. ChanServ, IRCop, NickServ, etc.), global K:Lines (ban of one person or an entire domain from

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