I Skype, forget the Plain Instant Messaging such as MSN

We all have heard of and probably used one of the many IM applications like these (data marked with an asterisk is based on information from Lehman Brothers, comScore Media Metrix):

• MSN Messenger 178.2 million users worldwide*
• Yahoo! Instant Messenger 78.8 million users worldwide*
• AOL Instant Messenger 30 million users worldwide*
• ICQ 29.2 million users worldwide*
• iChat Only for Apple Mac users; it is compatible with AIM
• n GAIM for Linux
• IRC Internet Relay Chat
• Trillian Supports ICQ, IRC, AIM,Yahoo! and MSN chats
• GoogleTalk The newest player
• Skype 50 million worldwide users as of August 2005; growing by 150,000 users daily

Skype does almost everything these other solutions do as far as instant messaging, but as we stated in the beginning, Skype has voice capability, which takes IM to another level. Skype is clearly the fastest-growing IM application and soon will be in third place in terms of users worldwide, behind Yahoo! Instant Messaging, probably by the end of 2005. With the additions coming to Skype for Video, for example, Skype will soon rival Microsoft MSN Messenger in number of users globally.

 

You do not have to run just one IM application, of course. Many of us have AIM, MSN,Yahoo! and Skype all running so that we are as connected as we can be, since everyone uses something different and you want to be able to chat with all your contacts on whatever application they have. The nice thing is that all these IM solutions play well with one another and do not cause any issues when running at the same time, so go ahead and fill up your taskbar or dashboard with IM icons.

As a matter of fact, I use Skype with MSN Messenger at the same time with my daughter and family.