Monday, April 6, 2009

The Role of Instant Messaging in Professional Writing (Katie Donnellan)

Instant messaging was created in 1996 by Mirabalis. An Israeli startup company, calling their client ICQ Say it Out Loud was the first company to offer instant messaging for free. People all over the world were able to communicate with one another in an instant without worrying about long distance phone call costs or waiting for emails. Eventually, American Online’s AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) bought out Mirabalis and is now the most used instant messenger system.


Instant messaging is not only a tool for recreational use, but when used properly in the office, it can raise the efficiency level of workers. They are able to “instantly” contact coworkers in the office for quick questions or file transfers that if left to email, may not be answered within a few minutes or hours depending on how often an individual checks their email. According to an interviewee of Ms. Robo from Salary.com, they use instant messaging for immediate contact with their cliental that could be states away. Also, instant messaging gives the luxury of being able to take time to think about questions being asked, unlike on the telephone when put on the spot.


Unfortunately, people do abuse the service, and for that reason alone, businesses are slow in allowing their employees instant messaging usage. Individuals tend to start instant messaging their friends outside of the work place, making them unproductive. Also, hard drives and large company computer systems are more susceptible to being hacked through the instant messaging software.



http://www.boston.com/jobs/nehra/112805.shtml

http://www.salary.com/advice/layouthtmls/advl_display_nocat_Ser79_Par168.html

5 comments:

  1. This post is great Katie. It shows everything that is both positive and negative with instant messaging in the business world. I always loved to instant message with AIM and MSN but now that facebook has came out with is I don't use those as much now. But great post and visual included.

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  3. I also like this post! I think instant messanging would be a great tool in companies if employees would just agree to use it correctly.

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  4. Nice backround information, it is sad that instant messaging is not used more in the business world

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  5. I, too, loved the history lesson, Katie. Fascinating stuff about IM. Nice graphic!

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