Open Forum: What do you use for messaging with friends and for work?

Julio Franco

Posts: 9,092   +2,043
Staff member

In honor of AIM, one of the oldest messaging platforms that is shutting down after 20 years of service, it's reminded me of other platforms that have gone away but were very popular at its peak: ICQ, MSN Messenger, mIRC, among others.

Messaging and social apps are more popular than ever, seeing tremendous growth and evolution in the last half decade. With dominant platforms -- depending on where you live and the purpose of communication -- that could be WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, Instagram, Line, Snapchat, Facebook (or their own Messenger), Slack, and the list goes on.

In this weekend's open forum, tell us what chat platform you remember being your first widely used platform and what do you use today for messaging and keeping in touch with friends and what else do you use (if any) for work related communication?

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My phone because if it's important enough to message people from work I can't rely on facebook....
 
I never paid any attention to any messaging apps until I purchased my first Android phone and used WhatsApp. Until then, whenever I messaged anyone or anyone messaged me, it was via good old SMS's. That always did the trick.
 
I have GroupMe on my phone for larger group messages. It works well and is on iOS, Android, and Windows 10.
 
At the beginning (1998) we had ICQ as a local server messaging platform (intranet) at work but with the needing of remote assistance in real time now we got teamviewer and for friends whatsapp
 
Used to use ICQ.... and occasionally MSN as well - had Trillian which could use both at the same time...

IRC is NOT dead by the way.... not exactly ideal for messenger-type service, but excellent for group communication (as well as downloading shady pieces of software :) ).

Now I use my phone for messaging anyone I actually know in real life... Skype for those I only know online....
 
Skype pro at work (which sucks most of the time), messenger(facebook messages + sms) and whatsapp
 
Wire.com for me is the best.
Encrypted Chat
Encrypted Video
Encrypted Calling
Encrypted Group Chat
( Web, iOS, Android )
Free
 
Cisco Jabber at work and Google Hangouts for personal stuff. I worked for AOL before it got really big (pre-unlimited dial-up access) so I was a big AIM user as well.
 
Man, here in Brazil, WhatsApp is huge. No less than 100% of people here use it. Specially, because, in general, it doesn't count towards your monthly data cap. And you can use it even if you have (for any reason) reached your monthly cap.
 
SMS!

Work Email for annoying coworkers! If they tried to call, my answering machine will remind them that not to bother me with work.
 
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