IM has grown up

All you parents out there know that instant messaging isn't just text anymore, right? It's games, bots, videos, photo-swapping, tune-sharing, ringtones, individually customized "skins," etc. All of which makes it really attractive to kids and therefore yet another thing on which parents need to be up to speed. The BBC recently published an update on some of this, including a little history on this phenomenon that started in Israel in 1996 (with ICQ, bought by AOL in '98 for nearly $300 million) and has grown to pandemic proportions. With IM-forwarding to cell phones now, it will really take off in Europe and Asia, where text-messaging, or SMS, on mobile phones is way ahead of North America. The BBC's numbers are limited, but 2 billion messages a day on AOL's service and 19 million users of Yahoo Instant Messenger in the US alone give you a feel for IM's popularity. But parents also need to know that all these additional, kid-friendly features come with PC security risks - viruses, spyware, porn "spim" (IM spam), and strangers on buddy lists. Text, audio, still images, and video also use different ports, or access points into the family, so it's good for parents and kids to configure the IM software program's Preferences together - or at least talk about how aware everyone is of the risks (to kids and computers) that can be associated with instant-messaging. As a talking point and for some great perspective on all this, here's "Instant messaging risks and tips" from a tech-literate father of six.