Module 2: Chat

For this I downloaded ICQ. (I seek you)

http://www.icq.com/download/

Immediately you are greeted with a young, friendly looking screen. ICQ's logo is a flower and the motto "everyone, everywhere" is catchy. The download took 10 minutes for me, installation was hassle free.




The opening screen



I chose the "Custom Option", which means I gave up the opportunity to have an ICQ toolbar, default browser and whatever else they were pushing. ICQ doesn't seem to mind though and when I agree to their set of terms and conditions, installs when I hit "next".


ICQ then tries to befriend me. Apparently we are deciding the age-old debate of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Everyone knows the chicken came first, so I click that.



ICQ's ice-breaker

I put in a set of bogus details (I have made myself younger by 2 years..looks like I'm not 30 this year after all) and when I'm done, I'm presented with three windows. A mini tutorial in the corner of my screen, the "Welcome" page, the start up screen..where to go first?

My screen on completion of the installation

I decide to look up Janettes number. I puts me through, I then add her as a contact and send a message. The chat screen is very playful and colourful, it also has annoying advertising at the bottom, which distracts me. While chatting to Janette, I can't help but look at the flashes at the bottom of the screen.

Having used Skype until now, I saw the main problem with wanting to use ICQ exclusively for text chat, is they try and do too much. Its got everything. Not only text chat, SMS and call, but blog, and search, forums, even dating. I had a look at these functions and didn't find them to be as good as the programs I'm using at present, with exception of the dating, which I am not using at all. And not being into chat rooms, I am only interested in messaging people I know, either for studying or to catch up with existing friends.


This is good as a one stop shop, but do I really want/need a one stop shop for all of these things or do they function better seperately? Personally, I like it all seperate. I am distracted enough with Skype's pop-up messages, imagine if I had forums and blogs which I could also browse while working. I would never have gotten this blog written.