IM: All Thumbs...

I have arrived at Thing 11 and think that I am not too good at texting, that’s what we call it on the phone.

I think it is an essential resource for libraries and telephone reference. I IMed us and asked how many questions they receive an hour. They responded mine was the second of the hour. Usually time spent is between 5-10 minutes per customer.

Of course the younger you are, the more likely you are to be familiar with the technology, since they spend hours texting their friends, they are phenomenally fast. My daughter sent a voicemail from her cell phone to my computer of my granddaughter singing along with Alicia Keys! She sends me pictures of her from her cell all the time. I rather like email, which is losing ground with the younger set. I agree with them that I do not like paying for the service. I like the time to compose my thoughts. But now we are sighing and tapping our foot in front of the microwave because two minutes to cook a bag of popcorn is so long....

Knowing you do not have to use a computer keyboard to IM is certainly going to open the floodgates especially for students writing term papers and exams! The challenge is marketing to the 25 and beyond crowd. Which is most of us.....

I certainly agree with the idea of IM etiquette; use away messages and especially, accept typos and abbreviations.

Signing off….