Real-time messaging

With Instant Messaging (IM), you can have a real-time conversation with someone living miles away from you, without spending money on expensive phone bills and calling cards. You may have heard of some of these services: Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk or MSN to name the most popular ones. With these programmes you can create a contact list (like a list of email contacts) of people who use the same service. You can be alerted when they come online and then you can initiate text chat with them. Some of these services allow you to transfer files, such as documents or images, across the chat. Some of them also offer the added benefit of using web-cams so you can see the person you are chatting with, and some even allow you to have voice conversations using a microphone and your computer's speakers.