Friday, December 03, 2004

Publish Day - IM rant

Processor.com has published an opinion piece of mine in which I go on and on about the evils of instant messaging (IM). The headline is, inexplicably, Instant Messaging, and you can find it here. I'll forewarn you, however: I'm really obtuse in expanding on my argument against this class of software.

This piece is also notable for the debut of my newly-filtered byline picture. I'm no longer a pixellated twin of Frodo. Instead, I've been transformed into a sepia-toned, attitudinally-challenged twin of Frodo. It still isn't pretty, but at least it looks a bit more like the real thing.

Insofar as IM is concerned, I remain steadfast in my contention that this technology both is and shall be the greatest threat to computerized productivity since the invention of Tetris. I despise it to the depths of my very soul, and am glad I was able to turn such unfiltered hatred for some computer code into a really fun-to-write article.

If you're still an IM fan, why?

2 comments:

Chris said...

I used a now-forgotten version of IM for an online course I took - it was required as all our discussion groups were virtual. I'd never used it before, and thought it was a great way to talk to multiple people many miles apart.

But as soon as the course was over, I stopped using it. Haven't touched it since the summer of '00.

Of course, I don't have all that many friends either. Odds are pretty good that even if I installed every IM system out there, I'd have no one to talk to. Online, that is. In the real world, I'm surrounded by chatterboxes.

And I prefer it that way.

P.S. Nice picture, BTW.

Anonymous said...

I am a fan because it really has enhanced productivity. If people want to screw around there are a million ways to do it, IM is just one of the many. Not a very exciting argument, but it is really late.