What is Y.M.?
Y.M. is an abbreviation for Yahoo Messenger, which is a chat program very analogous to ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger, well known as AIM. Y.M. is a great way to talk to family and kin, and the number of members are only secondary to the well-known and famous AOL Instant Messenger, which presently has 50 million members and counting. Yahoo Messenger lets you talk to the people you care about most any day, any time. It doesn’t matter if you have relatives overseas, or just want to borrow a frying pan from your neighbor. Why not use technology to your benefit? You can and WILL with Yahoo Messenger!

There are a few system requirements, and they are listed below and at
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mesg/mesg-02.html

An active (free!) Yahoo! Account
Microsoft Windows NT, 95, or 98.
Either Netscape Navigator (3.0+) or Microsoft Internet Explorer (3.0+)
It Takes 2.5 MB to run this program, but you will want to have much more space.

What is AIM?
Aim, or AOL Instant Messenger is the most famous Instant Messaging program. It has just over 50 million members, and is well known. In fact, if you haven’t heard of it you must have spent the last five years in the Amazon, or on planet Jupiter. Regardless of where you have been, there is now hope. Aim has many competitors but the one that comes the closest to surpassing it is the Yahoo Messenger, or YM. AOL Instant Messenger was first introduced to the AOL subscribers in the early 90’s. Since then, it has made leaps and bounds and is quite astonishing. E-Mail has replaced Postal Mail, and the telephone industries better watch out or they’ll be in a heap of trouble too.

The System Requirements for using AIM can be found at http://www.aol.com/aim/faq/getstarted.html#whatneed and are as follows:

You can get by with less, but we recommend you have at least:
Pentium processor or PPC Macintosh
Windows 95 or higher, or Macintosh System 8.5 or higher.
16MB RAM
5MB of free hard drive space
28.8 modem
Internet connection that allows full Internet usage (not just a free email service)
800x600 resolution, 256 colors or more
Full duplex sound card (though Talk will work with half duplex)

Aim VS YM

No, it’s not the Rams and Titans, not the Spurs and Suns, but it is two heavyweight contenders, YM and Aim who will take home the Emmy in this years Instant Messaging Contest? It is a popular belief that AIM is better, but is it true? YM and AIM both have great Instant Messaging Software, but which one is better, and which one will suit your needs?

Size
YM and Aim are about the same size in width, but Aim is about 1 inch, or 1/5th longer than YM. Of course you can minimize it, but once you do; it looks awkward and unbalanced. Although by popular belief and famous ad campaign that “Bigger is Better,” YM takes the cake, well at least 4/5ths of it in this category.

Saving Chat
You can save both conversations, but who makes it easier? To save the chat on AOL Instant Messenger, you have to copy and paste the whole chat, open an office document, and click save. To save the conversation in Yahoo, all you have to do is click on the picture of the floppy disk and click save! I know it doesn’t seem like that much difference, but what if you have to go in a hurry? What if you are in the middle of a debate and want to know where to begin your next conversation? YM again takes the prize in this category!

Printing Conversations
To print a conversation on YM, all you do is to click the printer and it will start printing. It is fairly simple to print it on AIM too, because all you have to do is go to file and click print. Both are simple, and easy. Both get the prize in this category!

Pasting
When you copy something from a webpage, don’t you hate going to edit paste? Well, I don’t either, but if you ARE that lazy YM has added a feature where you can click on the clipboard, and it will automatically paste what you have copied! Neat, huh? Well not really…but just an added feature that YM has added for you. If you want to paste on AIM you need to go to edit, and select paste. Both get the prize in this category!

Colors
If you are ever in the mood to type in “color.” Then you now can express your “color moods” with YM and AIM! YM offers you 10 basic colors to chat and express your feelings with. (I know, who am I kidding?) YM offers colors like purple, blue, red, pink, and six other colors. But when you see all the colors you can have with AIM, “Wow!” There are 48 colors already there for you to type with, and I have probably used all of them! AIM takes the die in this category!

Chat Font
Have you ever got tired of Times New Roman and wish their would be something else for you to type in? Well, besides the normal bold italics and underline, YM offers many different versions of letters and pictures. For Instance, Wingdings are pictures representing letters. You know, China’s famous alphabet? AIM just has Times New Roman, which is boring! YM not only takes the dice, but rolls double sixes in this category!

Sizes of letters
With YM, you can set what size you want your chat to be. For example, right now I am using size 14 in this review. If you wanted to chat in 17, you would just scroll down to 17 and your words would appear bigger than usual. If you wanted to type in size 6, then the person you are talking to would squint and most likely reply with what? With AIM you can change sizes of the letters, but you don’t know what size you are using. You click on the A button and make it bigger, or on the lowercase A and make it smaller. Aim is confusing and you sometimes just wonder why they just don’t tell you what size you are typing in. YM takes yet another category!

Links to other WebPages
Are you ever so lucky and stumble onto a Pulitzer Prize webpage? Well, if you are ever that lucky wouldn’t you want a friend to know and to give him a link? Well, AIM and YM both offer a link you can give to your friends. On the YM, all you do is type in the message dialogue and a link to that webpage will appear. For instance, you just stumbled on Epinions and want to give them a link. You would just type http://www.epinions.com, and just like that your friend will have a link to this website! On AIM, you click the “link” button and type the webpage in. Both of these are easy, and a great feature! No clear winner in this category!
Smiley’s
Are you sad? Are you an angel? Are you just an old fashioned smart a*se? Well now you can show emotions by adding smileys to your chat! YM offers 4 basic smileys, happy, sad, a sticking out tongue smiley, and even a, my lips are sealed smiley! With AIM, you have 9 smileys, including all of the smileys YM has. Such as, an angel, and even a smiley being kissed! AIM wins this category with no trouble!





Warn
AIM has added a “warn” feature. This feature is quite ridiculous and unwanted. Whenever you feel like it, you can warn someone and can limit his or her activity when using AIM! What if someone just “warns” you with unreasonable cause? Tough, it doesn’t matter! What this tells me is AIM is too lazy and just doesn’t want to do the job and kick off the “bad people.”

Automatic Response
Do you leave your computer on while eating? If so, then wouldn’t you want people who Instant Message you during this time know where you were? If so, now with the automatic response that AIM offers they will know! It is simple, and all you have to do is type in your message and when someone Instant messages you they will get your automatic message. What a great idea! For a change, and unlike the Warning button, this IS wanted.

Send Pictures
Now With AIM, you can send your friends pictures! You both need to have AIM 4.0, and have to “directly connect” While directly connected; you can send pictures of your family, or even pets! I would tell you how, but all I know is that you CAN do it, but I haven’t done it yet, so I cannot fully explain it to you in detail.
Talk Live
You can talk into a microphone on YM and AIM! This is what the telephone industries better watch out for! With only the cost of the microphone, you can talk to complete strangers. But do watch out, there are many perverts and this feature is not suitable for younger children.

So which is better? Although both are great services, YM wins by a nose. With its easy layout and fully explained robot named YahooHelper, this service just can’t be beat, yet. I believe that AIM will beat it, soon, though, because Steve Case does NOT like to lose!

How Much is it?
Both of these services are free, and I expect YM to stay that way. Back in 98 Steve Case raised the monthly fee from 19.99, to 21.99, making me believe that AIM won’t stay free for long, although I could be wrong. The point is that it is free now, take advantage of both of these services while you can!

My Final Conclusion
Although more people are on AIM, I personally feel that YM is much better. They are more professional and do not have a “warn” button. Although YM barely edges out AIM in this year’s contest, I feel it is a necessity to have both of these great Instant Messaging services.

Yahoo Messenger: 4 stars.
Pros: Great Instant Messenger Software, great voice chat and layout.
Cons: Annoying Knocking when a friend signs on, noise disturbances.

AOL Instant Messenger: 4 stars
Pros: Great Voice Chat and Instant Messenger Software can send pictures while talking and without downloading.
Cons: The warning button and that AOL cares more about its non-members, than members. The member's Instant messaging software is very poor and unprofessional.

Related URL’s: Http://WWW.AOL.COM
Http://WWW.Yahoo.com




Recommended: Yes