The Internet For Dummies, 14th Edition

Chapter 12

Typing and Talking Online

In This Chapter

Typing to one friend at a time

Talking to friends old and new, with a webcam

Talking by telephone over the Internet

Typing to a lot of friends at a time with chat rooms and mailing lists

Email is pretty fast, usually arriving in less than a minute. But sometimes that just isn’t fast enough. Text chat or instant-message (IM) systems let you pop up a message on a friend’s screen in a matter of seconds. You can also tell your messaging program the usernames of your friends and colleagues so that the program can alert you the instant that one of your buddies comes online and you can instantiate an instant message to them. (Excuse us — this topic gives us a headache. Wait just a moment while we get some instant coffee. Ahh, that’s better.)

The good thing about instant messages is that you can stay in touch with people as fast as by talking to them on the phone. The bad thing about instant messages is that they also offer an unparalleled range of ways to annoy people. Use with discretion! Gregarious people can chat with a whole bunch ...