Week 13: Messaging

1
Week 13 Messaging

• Tara Smith
• April 8, 2003
• I385T - KMS

2
What is Instant Messaging (IM)?

• Instant Messaging is near-synchronous
  computer-based one-on-one communication. (Nardi,
  Whittaker, Bradner p. 80)
• Instant messaging is an Internet protocol
  (IP)based application that provides convenient
  communication between people using a variety of
  different device types. The most familiar today
  is computer-to-computer instant text messaging,
  but IM also can work with mobile devices, such as
  digital cellular phones, and can incorporate
  voice or video. (International Engineering
  Consortium)
• Instant messaging is the ability to easily see
  whether a chosen friend or co-worker is connected
  to the Internet and to exchange messages with
  them. IM differs from ordinary e-mail in the
  immediacy of the message exchange, and makes
  continued exchange simpler than sending e-mail
  back and forth. Most IMs are text-only.
  However, some services allow voice messaging and
  file sharing. Usually, IMing is truly "instant."
  Even during peak Internet usage periods, the
  delay is rarely more than a few seconds.
  (Searchwebservices.com)

3
Ideas and Questions

• Describe your personal IM habits.
• Has anyone used IM for work?
• IM as free communication.
• Collegial, yet user-controlled interactions.
• What features would you incorporate with a
  Corporate IM system to support KM?

4
Quick Facts and Other Figures

• In a survey of 102 companies with 1,000
  employees
• 93 say theyre either using or expect to use IM
  on their networks in the near future.
• 33 have chosen an IM standard (one or more
  products)
• 28 block IM traffic
• (Osterman Research, InternetWeek.com. April
  2, 2003)
• In a recent report, Instant Messaging for
  Business
• 200 million people use IM, forecasted at 500
  million users by 2006.
• 60 of real-time communication will be driven by
  IM technology by 2004.
• (ZDNet Australia. Instant Messaging for
  Business. February 5, 2003)

5
Presence

• Presence is the detection of another person
  online, a fundamental process of IM systems.
• With presence, users indicate their status
  whether theyre available or notThis feature
  reduces phone tag, enables ad hoc meetings to
  occur, and in general facilitates the sort of
  electronic communications that might naturally
  occur in person.
  (Greenfield. Network Magazine. December
  4, 2002)
• The IETF is working on an IM standard, the
  Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol to
  define protocols and data formats necessary to
  build an internet-scale end-user presence
  awareness, notification and instant messaging
  system. (IMPP Working Group)

6
IM Platforms

• Consumer Services (usually free)
• AIM - ICQ - IRC - MSN Yahoo Messenger
• Trillian
• Enterprise Services (more secure)
• Jabber - Exchange Server - Lotus Sametime
• Yahoo Messenger Enterprise
• Open Systems and Others
• Comparison of IM Systems (Source the Yankee
  Group, 2002)

7
Consumer IM

• ICQ (I seek you) was started in 1996 as a free
  utility that allowed client-to-client
  communication. Bought by AOL in 1998.
• AIM, MSN and Yahoo Messenger are free proprietary
  protocol systems and are not secure.
• Trillian allows cross-platform communication and
  logs chats. A for-purchase version has
  additional features.

8
Enterprise IM

• It took more than 10 years before enterprises
  recognized and effectively addressed problems of
  (e-mail) security, reliability and business
  policy. Enterprises must pay proper attention to
  IM usage now, lest they repeat the painful
  lessons taught by e-mail.
  (Smith. InternetMessagingPlanet.com FAQ)
• The Gartner Group predicts that 70 of all
  enterprises will employ IM services by 2003, and
  that by 2005, IM will be integrated into 50 of
  the applications that businesses use to directily
  interact with their customers. (Greenfield.
  Network Magazine. December 4, 2002)
• Most of the products available now, or coming
  soon, provide the strong user namespace
  management, directory integration, end-to-end
  message encryption, and auditing and reporting
  capabilities currently lacking in most public IM
  systems. (Chu.
  eWeek.com. December 16, 2002)

9
Interaction and Outeraction

• IM supports informal, interactive communication
  tasks. These tasks are essential to
  collaborative work since they support joint
  problem solving, coordination, social bonding,
  and social learning. (Nardi, Whittaker, Bradner
  p. 79)
• IM also supports outeraction, a set of
  communicative processes outside of information
  exchange, in which people reach out to others in
  patently social ways to enable information
  exchange. (Nardi, Whittaker, Bradner p. 79)

10
IM for Communication and Interaction

• Primary Uses
• Quick questions and clarifications
• Coordination and scheduling
• Arranging impromptu social meetings
• Keeping in touch with friends and family
• IM is successful because it is
• - Immediate - Flexible - Expressive

11
Outeractive Functions of IM

• IM supports the non-interactive aspects of
• communication through
• Ease of Screening (presence),
• Delayed Responding, and
• Plausible Deniability.
• These functions give users more control
• over interactions than other communication
• mediums.

12
Internet Relay Chat

• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a major real-time
  textual group-messaging system. (Van Dyke,
  Lieberman, Maes p. 39)
• IRC conversations take place in channels (chat
  rooms) where all messages are public users
  explicitly join conversations and identification
  is arbitrary.
• Finding an interesting conversation takes
  considerable manual searching.

13
Butterfly for IRC

• Butterfly is a software agent that samples the
  content of all the IRC channels, and makes
  recommendations using a keyword-based model of
  interest. (Van Dyke, Lieberman, Maes
  p. 39)
• Allows users to designate interest in a topic at
  three levels normal, great, and negative.

14
Conversational Technology

• Conversational functionality is now being added
  to a variety of web-based activities.
• 3 types of instant communication
• Peer-to-Peer
• Application-to-Application
• Peer-to-Application
• (A-A and P-A support agent functions)

15
Conversational Technology Jabber

• Jabber supports all three types of instant
  communication in real-time and asynchronously.
  Jabber is also a cross-platform application.
• Jabber is XML based, allowing for a fully
  distributed but private namespace, and
  single-point conversation management.
• To the traditional identification elements of
  user_at_server, Jabber adds /resource to provide
  access to data.
• Presence is more than just on/offline. Jabber
  includes location, applications in use, and other
  contextual details.

16
Welcome to the IM Gold Rush

• One of the key draws of secure IM for companies
  is that it will allow them to use the medium for
  more complex transactions than mere gossiping.
  (Glasner. Wired News. September 11, 2002)
• IM tools marketed to businesses feature
• behind-the-firewall security
• encryption
• greater company-level control
• log archiving

17
Security Issues

• While many consumer instant messaging
  products promise real-time connectivity, these
  third-party peer-to-peer Web Chat applications
  can pose real threats to the focus, integrity,
  and security of your business communications.
  (2Way Corporation,
  InstantMessagingPlanet.com)

18
Internet Trends

• The trend for enterprise instant messaging is
• splitting in three directions
• Consumer-based public IM solutions AOL (57
  share) MSN (37), Yahoo (31), and ICQ (20).
• Closed, proprietary IM solutions Lotus Sametime
  or Communicators Hub IM System (financial
  services)
• Open solutions IMlogic or IM-Age. These permit
  the use of public IM networks, but allow the
  enterprise to control the messaging software.
• (The Yankee Group. Instant Messaging in the
  Enterprise. August 12, 2002)

19
What to look for in an IM package

• Client Platform Support
• Server Platform Support
• Directory Support
• Interoperability with Public IM systems
• Server based Logging
• (ZDNet Australia. Instant Messaging for
  Business. February 5, 2003)

20
IM News

• ActiveBuddys HR Agent
• IM-Ages IM Policy Manager
• Microsoft Sharepoint for Office 2003 and
  Greenwich
• InstantMessagingPlanet.com