Chapter 15
Beyond E-Mail: Social Networking and Online Communities
In This Chapter
Protocols described in this chapter: SMS, MMS, SMPP, IRC, OSCAR, Jabber, XMPP, NNTP
Letting your thumbs do the talking
Chatting and communicating beyond e-mail
Being social online
These days, whenever you want to communicate with other people, you have many options, but two major factors affect your choices: time and place.
Figure 15-1 shows you many ways to overcome the challenges of time and space. Plus, you can communicate one-to-one, one person to another person (1:1); one-to-many (1:n), one person to many people; many-to-one (n:1), many people to one person; and many-to-many (n:m), many people to many people.
Because we’re all busy people with lots of communicating to do, this chapter doesn’t detail all these solutions. Although TCP/IP makes them all possible, many of them use protocols that are covered in other chapters. Still, you should understand what’s out there, and that’s what this chapter is about.
You often have the best chance of communicating with someone if you stick with e-mail. The standards are terrific, and interoperability is amazingly high. When all else fails, e-mail it! (Chapter 13 gives you all the details about e-mail.)
Figure 15-1: Where, when, and how can you talk with someone?
Thumbing to Talk About
In addition to making voice calls, mobile (cell) phone users can ...
