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Member since:2005-12-31
In The Netherlands, for instance, MSN has a 99.99% marketshare, and chatting is not called instant messaging or something similar, no, it's called "MSN'ing". I kid you not. AIM, ICQ, Y! are all non-existant here.
Which is also true for Norway, and as you say - probably most other european countries as well.
Member since:2005-11-10
Member since:2006-10-08
From my personal experience - I live in Germany - the central european countries' Hans W. Averages tend to prefer ICQ over MSN. "What's your UIN?" is a popular question. Furthermore, Jabber and PSI (that supports many IM types) and even IRC are used for IM purposes, but only by the higher educated ones who know what they're doing. :-)
Member since:2006-07-30
That's very strange. Do you rely on statistics or are you just judging by peronal experience?
Everybody I know uses ICQ and some of them also use Skype. Nearly nobody uses MSN, though I do know some guys who don't know what it is or how to switch it off permanently 
Since I'm from Germany I suppose market share figures should be somehow similar.
Do you have any links to statistics about the market share of MSN?
Otherwise your impression may be just as biased as mine.
Member since:2005-06-30
Member since:2006-10-10
Member since:2006-11-15
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2005-04-01
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2005-07-03
In The Netherlands, I have yet to encounter anyone outside of myself using anything other than the default MSN client.
I still use ICQ (besides MSN, Yahoo & Jabber) and I'm from the Netherlands, as long as I still have friends on a certain protocol, why abandon it? I only use the default MSN client at work, at home I use Miranda-IM (under Windows) & Gaim (under Linux). And I know plenty of ppl here who use different clients (Trillian being the most prominent one among friends who don't use MSN). Maybe you just don't know that many ppl? 
Member since:2006-01-02
Member since:
2005-06-29
Apple's iChat is integrated with one of the largest IM networks in the world. Last time I checked more people use AIM and ICQ than use Google's chat program.
The problem with Messenger protocols is not which gets used the most in the world, but which gets used in your country (and hence, gets used by your friends). In The Netherlands, for instance, MSN has a 99.99% marketshare, and chatting is not called instant messaging or something similar, no, it's called "MSN'ing". I kid you not. AIM, ICQ, Y! are all non-existant here.
And to reply to someone else's post:
Thing is, these days there are _very_ meny people who just don't care what is the network/protocol behind their IM software, since they use IM clients which can connect to some, more or all of the existing IM networks (a lot of quality clientes exist for this purpose, for a lot of OSes).
In The Netherlands, I have yet to encounter anyone outside of myself using anything other than the default MSN client.