Scorsese, Martin.Scorsese on Scorsese. Rev. ed. Lon-
don: Faber & Faber, 2003. Book of interviews with
Scorsese, who tells of his love of films; his obses-
sion with New York’s Little Italy, the setting of
many of his films; and his intense style of film-
making.
Waxman, Sharon.Rebels on the Back Lot: Six Maverick
Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Stu-
dio System.New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Chron-
icles the rise of Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas
Anderson, David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh,
David O. Russell, and Spike Jonze in their strug-
gle to make films according to their own personal
visions. Recounts ego-driven battles that are not
always funny.
Mar y Hurd
See also Academy Awards;Blair Witch Project, The;
Coen brothers; Film in the United States;GoodFellas;
Lee, Spike;Pulp Fiction; Sundance Film Festival; Tar-
antino, Quentin.
Instant messaging
Definition A communications mode that allows
two or more persons to use digitally based
information (generally text) to communicate
synchronously over a network of computers
Instant messaging (IM) swept the United States in the
1990’s, changing communication styles and expectations
of online contact with friends, families, and even strangers.
With the development of the Internet and the World
Wide Web, communicating between computers was
accomplished through e-mail and bulletin boards.
E-mails necessitated a time lag between a sent mes-
sage and the recipient’s reply and required an e-mail
address to locate the intended recipient of the mes-
sage. Bulletin boards operated by dialing into a sys-
tem and using downloadable software to gain access
to an online board. Users, whose identities could re-
main anonymous, posted messages that all users
could read. However, postings appeared in random
order, so communication did not lend itself to back-
and-forth conversation.
Instant messaging united the best of e-mail and
bulletin boards, offering a more instant exchange
than e-mail and a more private exchange than a bul-
letin board. Instant messaging allowed users to chat
synchronously through text typing and provided a
means to limit the circle of contacts for an online ex-
change. A user downloaded software to connect to a
Web server. From a small window on the screen, the
user could add and delete contacts, determine
which contacts were online, and click on a contact
with whom he or she wished to converse. The user
typed a message and clicked a send button. If the re-
cipient was online, the user saw the message scroll
across the screen letter by letter with deletions and all
other typing actions the sender performed. Although
computers connected to the Web server could be lo-
cated anywhere, users reported that during instant
messaging, they felt the “presence” of the other per-
son(s), much like having a phone conversation.
Early versions of IM software were developed by
UNIX, America Online (AOL), Prodigy, and Compu-
Serve and connected individual computers to a Web
server. Messages from senders and recipients traveled
through the Web server, then out to the computer.
The popularity of instant messaging soared toward
the late 1990’s with the introduction of ICQ (“I seek
you”), developed by Mirabilis. ICQ was a free instant
messaging utility a step beyond other messaging ap-
plications. When a user logged into the system, ICQ
connected together the computers on the user’s con-
tact list. Messages no longer traveled through the
Web server and out, but traveled directly between the
linked computers. The result for the user was a faster
response time between messages, allowing an almost
real-time exchange and opening up an increased
ability to multitask while online.
Impact Instant messaging laid the foundation for a
completely connected world of real-time inter-
change in the era of multitasking.
Further Reading
Bell, Mary Ann, Mary Ann Berry, and James L. Van
Roekel.Internet and Personal Computing Fads.New
York: Haworth Press, 2004.
Lewis, Michael M.Next: The Future Just Happened.
New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
Rheingold, Howard.The Virtual Community: Home-
steading on the Electronic Frontier.Reading, Mass.:
Addison-Wesley, 1993.
Taylor ShawSee also America Online; Apple Computer; Com-
puters; Dot-coms; E-mail; Internet; Inventions; Mi-
crosoft; Science and technology; World Wide Web.The Nineties in America Instant messaging 451