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Zephyr, ICQ
Space These two systems are similar in that they are instant messaging systems, Tjhey have many similarities and a few minor differences. Of the three, Zephyr was the first to come along. For people to communicate using Zephyr, they each need to have it running on their machine and they need to know the remote users username. They can then send windowgrams to each other (see top image in Figure below). This allows for nearly instantaneous one on one communication. What made this system even more interesting was the ability of the users to hide themselves while logged on or to set different levels of access to themselves. Zephyr also allowed for the users to create a .anyone file, a file to list usernames of people for the purpose of knowing when and if they are logged in. This was followed by the ability to send one message to a class or group of people in that class. Some of the limitations of Zephyr were that it only ran on Unix machines with kerberos enabled in select schools. There is now a windows version with some of the same security constraints. ICQ is a newer system that has taken the instantaneous message approach a litter further. One of the first breakthroughs of ICQ was that it ran on many platforms and was location independent. That is, you did not have be within a university and you could run in on a Mac, a Windows machine, a Unix box, etc. It also provided for instant messaging within a web browser, so if one was away from their primary machine that had the software installed, they could still communicate. Making the interface easy to learn to use and allowing for the freedom of being anywhere made it one of the widely used messaging systems today. ICQ has much of the functionality of Zephyr. In this case, one sends a message to friend using their nickname or ID number. However, it also allows for more contact. That is, there is directory of users that allow their name to be listed. Using this, one can contact an old friend or begin to converse with a stranger. ICQ also has more access constraints. One can allow anyone to contact them or only those that have authorization. Also, one can ignore individual people, can can hide. They can display levels of interest in conversing, and can switch from instantaneous messaging to talk with the click of a button. Similarly to Zephyr, the user can have a contact list of people they frequently speak to. This system has taken on other uses as well. Oftentimes people have ICQ constantly running in the background. This gives those who have you on their contact list the notion of whether or not you are present online at that time. It also allows for people to share images and converse using audio. With all of these systems, the space is disjoint. That is the users each see different things and the messages are brought to their local location. Shared social spaces are visualized throught the contact lists and the access levels that create groups of people for conversation.
Time synchronous (must type return before message is sent)
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