
It differs from email in that conversations over instant messaging happen in real-time (hence "instant"). Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and triggers a transmission to the recipient(s), who are all connected on a common network. Instant messaging ( IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. A classic example of instant messaging on a desktop computer: the left window of this software showing a list of contacts (" buddy list") and the right window an active IM conversation
