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Instant Messenger Platforms (MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo)

Another form of synchronous chat is instant messaging (IM), which is often closely compared with chat rooms.  These are closed communities however as people generally add the people they know to their ‘friend list’ and may assign them to a community group from which they know them.  This is very different from navigating around a world shared with strangers and where people can log on to encounter a vast number of people from different backgrounds and locations.  Friends on IM are generally established in the real world or in another context and move to MSN.  IM is then used as a communications tool, often to maintain these relationships.  The usual social processes of self expression and mutual discovery between groups are not born from the platform and therefore cannot represent an online community.

All instant messenger (IM) chat platforms are continuing to incorporate more ways in which users can express themselves.  MSN offers users display images, profile pages and animated emoticons etc.  This makes IM more interactive and able in expressing the desired meaning.  The focus of such platforms remains on the functionality and communication technology that is offered, with sound and video increasingly taking the place of text based chat.  It is here that the distinction of a ‘user’ is highlighted, who uses a product like IM as a communication tool and for its functionality.  This is in stark difference to a ‘member’ of a community, who actively participates in an online community and considers the community the primary feature.