On 30-Jun-09, at 9:10 PM, Barry Wellman wrote:

Altho I wonder if IM has mostly given way to texting. Haven't checked the data, though.

Barry Wellman

I think certain Canadian tech business persons like Michael Copeland ( Corel) tried to make money from sms. Apparently he is loosing money on this venture. So while we can debate this, others risk their money on which is more popular. Then there are the workers in the computer firms who must learn these applications so they can provide them to us. I have used IM in law enforcement work as a late night security guard. There is a need for communication in law enforcement and in my security work we had phones, radios, pagers, and IM and bulletin boards and email. There were of course tasks for each one. We did not officially use cell phones but often we had these privately as a back up for dead radio batteries. This was in a high tech industry setting. Peter Peter Timusk, B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa. just trying to stay linear. Read by hundreds of lurkers every week. Kiitos Paljon, Merci, and thank you.