Or it could be integrated into Google's e-mail and instant messaging applications, giving users a bridge between their phones and Google's online services.
Skype works very much like an instant messaging program, but allows users to call people on their buddy list and have a voice conversation instead of a text-based chat.
Some of the most interesting speculation has centered around iChat, Apple's instant-messaging client that lets users send messages using their buddy lists from AOL Time Warner 's (nyse: AOL - news - people ) AOL Instant Messenger.
That's thanks to products such as its QQ instant messaging service with over 700 million users, which gives it huge marketing clout.
Although AOL is prepared to open up its Instant Messenger servers to GSM network operators, it remains steadfastly opposed to the idea of doing so for users of other instant messaging services -- although these services are not taking AOL's resistance lying down.
According to ComScore Media Metrix, in July, AOL's instant-messaging service had over 41 million users in the U.S. alone, Yahoo!
Teens were the vanguard for instant messaging and now tend to be heavy users, keeping multiple windows open and conducting several simultaneous conversations with friends.
In December, aiming to lure more consumers to its MSN Mobile service--a portal that connects cellphone users to MSN Search, news, Hotmail and instant messaging--Microsoft struck partnerships with MovieTickets.com and Thumbplay The deals enabled MSN Mobile users to access movie listings and reviews, and purchase movie tickets, ringtones and games straight from their cellphones.
Now Aimster is looking to give users of AOL's instant messaging software the chance to swap files.
Instant messaging networks are not immune, since most allow users to exchange files.
London-based Skype Technologies distributes an application that works like an instant messaging service, but instead of trading text, users plug in a microphone and speakers and have a voice conversation.
IMVU, a social networking and instant messaging client which uses 3D avatars to represent its users, announced Thursday that they have hired David Fleck to serve as vice president of marketing for the company.
MessageVine develops own-brand instant messaging services for mobile phone operators that enable them to build a community of desktop and mobile messaging users, according to the company's Vice President of International Operations, Amit Rahav.
Now it seems that the latest worm to infect AOL's instant messaging community, Aim, actually chats with the users it is targeting in order to persuade them to download and run an infected file.
Tencent QQ is already a wildly popular instant messaging platform in China, with over 700 million active users.
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Acquired by AOL two years ago, ICQ now has 70 million users, making it the largest instant-messaging service in the world.
Its instant messaging service, Tencent QQ, has more than 600 million users.
It has a function on it that enables users to chat, much as they would over instant messaging (IM), but via television.
Taobao offered instant messaging and voice mail to mobile phones for buyers and sellers because Chinese users were cell-phone savvy rather than computer savvy.
As a result, operators can more effectively ensure a carrier-grade quality of experience for end users of High Definition voice and video, Web conferencing, instant messaging and presence, and other broadband-intensive mobile applications that go beyond the reliability of Skype, Apple FaceTime and other services suited for consumers but inadequate for the rigors of enterprise use.
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Twitter, a social-networking blog site, allows users to send status updates, or "tweets, " from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook in less than 140 characters.
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Users can also stay connected through Social Hub, which supports email, social network integration and instant messaging, displaying all of your communication in a single inbox.
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Users can stay constantly connected with Social Hub Premium, which supports email, social network integration and instant messaging.
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Furthermore, 18 percent of African-Americans, 16 percent of English-speaking Hispanics and 10 percent of whites are "cell-only wireless users" -- which means their sole access to the internet, e-mail or instant messaging is via their phones.
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