IM at work?
July 27, 2007 on 10:46 am | In News | 22 Comments
The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article this week entitled “Instant Messaging Invades the Office”.
- Instant messaging is invading and changing the workplace. Employees started to sneak instant messaging into the office in the late 1990s, but now more companies are endorsing it. Faster and more casual than email, instant messaging can foster broader collaboration among employees even as it further blurs the boundaries between work and life. Read the full story
I wouldn’t say instant messaging at work is a new trend, but when it appears in the Wall Street Journal that means that even the most bottom-line bosses are starting to see its value.
Many employees love IM at work simply because they can stay connected to their family and friends – without the boss knowing. According to the article “Roughly one-third of U.S. employees use instant messaging at work, many without the knowledge of their employers”. And some employers still classify IM with things like games and other online diversions that can distract an employee from doing their real work.
But as evidenced by the many examples in the WSJ article, today’s workplace can benefit greatly from the instant connections made over IM. Tech consultant Gartner Inc. projects that instant messaging will be the “de facto tool for voice, video and text chat” for 95% of employees in big companies within five years. Since I work at Yahoo!, I get to use Yahoo! Messenger all day long without fear of reprisal from my boss but will companies get over their fears of losing control of their employees and embrace IM?
When we released Yahoo! Messenger for the Web back in May, we secretly hoped that millions of office workers everywhere would thumb their nose at the company firewall and IM to their heart’s content.
We’ve definitely seen some of that but despite the WSJ article, not every business is ready to IM-power their employees. We’ve seen some companies block access to webmessenger.yahoo.com.
Do you use IM at work? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
IM can be used for more than just interoffice communications. My company has been using IM for over two years to stay in contact with clients in real time. Sometimes, email just isn’t enough.
Comment by RegisteredTrademark — July 27, 2007 #
I use it ! And it’s very useful. My company has offices in different cities and using IM it’s much easier and faster to communicate whit my colleagues to collaborate to different projects. If they want to succeed, the big companies must not block the access of their workers to IM but to educate the staff to use IM mostly for work relate chat.
Comment by Seinfeld — July 27, 2007 #
My company has a policy that says we cannot use inferior software in the office, unfortunately it rules out all of Yahoo!’s offerings.
Comment by Tommy — July 27, 2007 #
Wonder how many have lost there jobs over this LOL
Comment by Karl — July 27, 2007 #
wish sarah bacon would the jeff guy seems to know what people want.
Comment by Karl — July 27, 2007 #
I use a mac at work.. and they dont allow us to use BETA software.. sure would be nice to have a FINAL version for MAC!
Comment by Jeremy — July 27, 2007 #
IM at work , DEFINITELTY YES!! I installed Yahoo Messengers at 3 different PCs at the office I work at.
They dont forbid us using this programs at work , actually they are very happy to see us using it , why? Because most of us have our break time infront of the PCs instead of going to the canteen!!!
What I’d like to know Sarah , how long to go before Yahoo Inc drops YMSG15 ( and below ) AUTHENTICATIONS? So we can get on with the new servers , people at work are getting a little impatient because they cant go to Stock Market chat rooms and so on.
Comment by Dave ( A Yahoo Fanatic ) — July 27, 2007 #
Yes ! i do use IM at work.
Comment by VaaSI — July 27, 2007 #
What you guys should do is create a striped down verson of messenger for the work inviorment, that only includes the basic fiunctions and none of the “entertament” features.
Comment by Chris — July 28, 2007 #
Is there a way to hide yahoo messanger installation in my computer?
Comment by Viviana — July 28, 2007 #
Hi Chris – We actually have created that. It’s our new Yahoo! Messenger for the Web. Try it out at:
http://webmessenger.yahoo.com
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — July 29, 2007 #
actually, at work, people aren’t just using messenger, they also read lots of blogs… in the weekend I have half of the visitors during a work-day, so…
Comment by dan s. — July 29, 2007 #
i’d die without yahoo messenger at work..lol
Comment by Nana — July 29, 2007 #
Unfortunately at my work environment we can even download Flash Player 9! However; the IM within email works very well and has not alerted anybody lol.
Comment by Haunt_victim — July 30, 2007 #
I am probably a good example of why some employers object to their employees using IM. I use it all day long to chat with family and friends. I don’t sacrifice my work for chat. I do still get my work done, but it seems like every time the boss walks by my desk is when I’m chatting. Is their an emoticon for Homer’s doh! I could use it! lol!
Comment by Rebecca — July 30, 2007 #
I used to use it at work, And I liked when you guys did that web messenger thing. But I never use that because anytime I try it lags a lot just to type it has gotten me introuble cuz the people I try to IM think I’m ignoring them.
Seriously when are you guys going to fix the lag on web messenger. I am always ignored when I ask, I never get an answer.
Simple.
Comment by CC — August 1, 2007 #
I work for a company that has multiple sites in many countries, and we all use Yahoo Messenger, especially when a phone call would be more expensive and more difficult (hard to understand accents, bad line quality, etc)
We’ll be changing to our own internal IM network soon though, as Y!M doesn’t have enough features for IT administrators to lock it down and log messages to a central server.
Comment by Steve — August 9, 2007 #
Just installed Messenger for Mac today so I could chat. Could not find any chat rooms on Yahoo. System is extremely difficult to use. No tech help either.
Comment by andrew — September 5, 2007 #
Well i use yahoo messenger a lot. An “invisible” skin, maybe sth that looks like excel
, would be great.
Comment by George — September 12, 2007 #
I like George’s suggestion. YM skins that look like Excel or Word. Hehehe.
The only problem is for people who can’t download or upgrade the Flash players on their office PCs, they can’t access the web messenger at all. Also, I tried it at home but the connection’s slow. I hope you can do something about that too.
Comment by Michelle — September 25, 2007 #
How can I get “the scream” from the Halloween collection?
Comment by Jane — November 13, 2008 #
My company’s firewall blocks access to messenger websites. I can access yahoo email, but messenger never loads. Is there any way around this?
Comment by JJ — September 9, 2009 #