MT_Christian_Pruefer

Persistent Instant Messaging

Description

Instant Messaging has become extremely popular not just for non-work-related communication in the last years. Many organizations use IM as a part of their communication besides email, audio or video channels. Not only groups, which members are at different locations, use Instant Messaging for communication. Also people who work in the same building or even sitting next to each other do use IM.

It is common that with IM also other information besides communication is shared like activity, state of presence or online state. Especially email and IM provide similar functions – so text messages (with any content, like hyperlinks, files etc.) are exchanged between users. IM has some major advantages but its own characteristics. Real time conversations can be hold – and not just for two people at the same time. But there are also some functions missing. With features like the persistence of chat information, history storage or topic based chat, IM can become much more interesting for using instead of email. We try to figure out what users or experts do think about new chat functionalities in order to improve communication and message handling also compared to the medium email. We want to turn attention to topic based IM in interaction with persistence of memory and features that help using IM in a more efficient and convenient way.

Detailed Information

People

Tom Gross, Supervisor
Guenther Schatter, Supervisor
Christian Pruefer, Master's candidate