I guess this means I'm old and not with the current times, but I just don't get the lure of instant messaging (IM). The whole experience is so unsettling that a long time ago I vowed not to ever use it. What's the point? I have to be a super-typist to have a barely coherent conversation. Then there are all those typo-ridden acronyms (lol, rotfl, u2, b4, cu, wtf) to learn. And if there are more than two people chatting, forget about keeping track of who said what, responding to whom and to which comment. Who needs the hassle.
If I need to send a message, I just use the good old-fashioned email. And for urgent cases, I just pick up the handset. I remember back when IRC chat rooms where in vogue. Out of curiosity, I peeked inside one of the rooms to see what the big deal was. After about two minutes of observing the volley of nonsense by purported teenagers, I had enough. That was my first and last time in an IRC chat room.
So I didn't think I would ever use a messenger program, but surprisingly I have been a happy user of Yahoo Messenger for a couple of years now. No, I don’t use it for IM, voice, or webcam. But I do use it to listen to music, read RSS subscriptions, and check a list of stocks. Yahoo Messenger has become a useful tool for me to that end.
Anyways, a few days ago I received this popup that alarmed me for a moment. I thought I had picked up a spyware or an adware. Turns out that it was just a system message from Yahoo Messenger. Right, I'm so glad that I can now save my chat logs on Yahoo's servers. Guess I won't be exceeding my storage quota any time soon.
