IM stands for instant messenger. IMing is faster than e-mail if both people are online at the same time.
You can Instant Message (IM) someone and receive Instant Messages (IMs) after installing a program onto your home computer. Some of these programs include: MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! IM or YIM or Y!M, and Skype. You can find many of these online by going to Google and typing in one of the above acronyms. From there you will select an appropriate page and download the program, following their series of links.
You will be prompted to create a username and password for you IM program. You can choose any name and any password that is currently available. Try to pick something neutral and not embarrassing.
Then, tell your friend that you have an IM program called [whatever you chose], and that they can send you an instant message through that free service. Write down your username you chose and give it to your friend. When they sign-up and download the IM program they will be able to send you a message if you have the program running on your computer at the time.
As for sending messages on Advicenators, this just isn't a social networking website. This is a place for advice so we don't have anything like that set-up for our disposal. We don't need to chat with friends while we're answering serious questions on Advicenators. That's why many people here have IM programs like I listed above and they can find out other Advicenators' usernames for those programs by looking at their specific column information. [ Peeps's advice column | Ask Peeps A Question ]
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