<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" type="topic" id="overview" xml:lang="en-GB">

  <info>
    <link type="guide" xref="index"/>
    <revision pkgversion="3.7" version="0.1" date="2012-11-30" status="draft"/>
    <desc>
      What instant messaging is and how you can use it.
    </desc>
    <credit type="author">
      <name>Aruna S</name>
      <email its:translate="no">aruna.evam@gmail.com</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="editor">
      <name>Ekaterina Gerasimova</name>
      <email its:translate="no">kittykat3756@gmail.com</email>
    </credit>
    <license>
      <p>Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0</p>
    </license>
  </info>

  <title>Overview of instant messaging</title>

  <p>
    Instant messaging, sometimes abbreviated to IM, is a text-based means to
    communicate instantly over the internet and the local network. While some
    IM applications work with only one type of account, others, including
    <link xref="introduction">Empathy</link>, provide IM facilities by using
    <link xref="add-account">accounts</link> from different service providers.
    Some of these even support audio and video calling.
  </p>

  <table frame="all" shade="cols">
     <tr>
       <td><p><media type="image" src="figures/video_overview.png" mime="image/png" style="right" width="150" height="150" its:translate="no"/></p></td>
       <td><p><media type="image" src="figures/conf_overview.png" mime="image/png" style="right" width="150" height="150" its:translate="no"/></p></td>
       <td><p><media type="image" src="figures/croom_overview.png" mime="image/png" style="right" width="150" height="150" its:translate="no"/></p></td>
     </tr>
     <tr>
       <td><p>Video Conference</p></td>
       <td><p>Group chats</p></td>
       <td><p>Chat rooms</p></td>
      </tr>
  </table>

  <p>
    Some instant messaging applications can be used to connect to chat rooms,
    online places where like-minded people meet to talk. One popular means to
    connect to several chat rooms is the Internet Relay Chat, also known as
    <link xref="irc-manage">IRC</link>. IRC provides
    <link xref="irc-join-room">public</link> chat rooms, which are open to
    anyone who creates an account on the IRC Server, and private chat rooms,
    which are <link xref="irc-join-pwd">password protected</link>
    and open only to a select few.
  </p>

</page>
