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`IM' with attitude
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The latest version of the popular MSN Messenger sports a cool new avatar and provides lots of tools for personalisation.
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AS AN offshoot of the chat-room culture which took the Internet world by storm a few years back, the concept of messengers caught on, providing a more private means of chatting — a person uses Messengers like Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and the rest, to keep in touch with his/her select list of "buddies".
Over the years, these messengers have evolved in their own unique ways — facility for video conferencing via a webcam, links to public chat rooms, voice chats, provision to transfer small files between the users etc. have been introduced. Facing tough competitions from mobile phone SMS (Short Messaging Service) systems, newer versions of IM (Instant Messaging) sport a cool, groovy look, giving the user options to personalise the chat window with theme-based environments, enhanced "emoticon" options and more.
MSN Messenger 6.0 is the latest to hit the market with its improved product. Downloadable free from the MSN.com website, it offers some impressive eye-candy elements to make your chat experience more fun. Personalised backgrounds, basically it is the window where you type your messages and view them, have been introduced, that now allow the user to choose from a list of colourful theme based backgrounds, from cartoon characters, to pop stars to the latest movies. While chatting, it does create an emotional closeness and makes you relate to your buddy just a wee bit more, as both of you are most likely to have similar tastes when it comes to movies or for that matter, colour, and appearance. Animated Emoticons are another addition — the classical "smiley" has grown up — it can actually blink its eyes, smile, frown, and even blush. The cute yellow faces are becoming synonymous with all messaging tools, these days.
MSN goes a step further by allowing the user to select his customised User Tiles, which is basically a logo or an icon to identify himself. In fact, this concept was first bundled with Microsoft's XP edition of the Windows Operating System. Another addition in MSN Messenger 6.0 is the Message Log
Feature, which allows the user to maintain copies of conversations, maybe for future reference. Well, the hint is that you cannot afford to be too open and carefree when you are messaging. You never know if your buddy is recording your conversions, and what he/she can do with it later.
One new feature to the software is the option to integrate webcams while chatting and playing games — it gives you a wonderful feeling of intimacy when you can look at the face of your old friend in Singapore, when you are chatting.
Some of the new "eye-candy" elements introduced by MSN can be seen with other tools like Yahoo as well, but MSN never attempted to sport this "cool" trendy avatar till now. The message is loud and clear — if you wanna IM, you gotta do it with attitude!
A. VISHNU
vishnua@hotmail.com
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
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