December 09, 2002
Instant Messenging is Evil
Acts of Volition was right, when Steven pointed out what’s wrong with MSN Messenger 5.0, but Simon Willison is right on the money when he Points out two more major flaws. The flaws he points out are by far the aspects I dislike the most about Messenger. I personally really despise MSN Messenger and prefer AIM over it by a large margin. The only reason I have an MSN account is because all my friends (and the rest of the world) are too lazy to look for the best piece of software to do something, and just use what comes with their computer (ie. what comes with Windows - Internet Explorer, Media Player, Messenger… the list goes on).
Actually, I’m not a huge fan of instant messenging in the first place. Yes, it’s a nice quick way of seeing if a friend is around, but it’s mainly a pain in the butt. Yes, typing is a slow form of communication. And it’s so impersonal. Most communication is non-verbal and with instant messenging, you completely miss out on everything non-verbal. Unless, you count an obnoxious little smiley face as non-verbal communication.
And to hell with closed source instant messenging in the first place, Gaim rocks all the other clients.
