What are Instant Messages (IM) and how are they ...

The transmission of an electronic messages over a computer network that immediately displays the message in a window on the screen of the recipient. An example is your cell phone. There are many abbreviations used instead of words. It is another form of communication, not a replacement of e mails.

Instant messages are messages sent by IM users (like you or me) using IM clients (yahoo messenger,AIM messenger,SKYPE,Google Talk,MSN messenger and lots more).In E-mail, the person might not receive an E-mail message in his inbox as soon as you send it(especially if u use a non-web based Email client like Outlook).But When you use an IM client, your message can be viewed by the recipient INSTANTLY, hence it called an "Instant" messenger.