11/10   Which chat program is the most popular these days?  AOL IM?  Yahoo
        Messenger?  ICQ?  I'm trying to sign up for one.  Thx.
        \_ AIM in USA, MSN for rest of the world.  Don't bother with ICQ,
           as the protocol is merging with AIM anyway.  If I were you, I
           get account in both AIM and MSN and use GAIM/Adium/Trillian as
           client.
        \_ Most people use AIM but there's always enough people who don't
           that you need a multi-protocol client like GAIM, Adium, or Trillian.
        \_ Most geeks use something like GAIM or Trillian b/c then it doesn't
           matter what other people are using, you can use them all.  If you're
           trying to pick a main account to use, it really doesn't matter much.
        \_ Most popular according to what standard?
           \_ The most chatting activity, I guess.  -- OP
              \_ There are no objective studies that can answer your question.
                 Perhaps you can try an answerable question?
        \_ AIM seems to be the most popular, at least in the US, but a coworker
           of mine claims that it's not really used outside of the US, so he
           uses MSN to chat to his friends in Sri Lanka and Britain. An intern
           who I used to work at Microsoft says that MSN was a joke and he
           didn't know anyone at school (MIT) who used it, and the only place
           he's ever seen it used was at MS. Like pp says, it's hard or
           impossible to answer the question.
           \_ Well, when someone comes from a school where people think it's
              normal to write an English paper in LaTeX using vi, I find it
              difficult to take their ideas about what constitutes "normal"
              seriously.
              \_ English paper in LaTeX using vi?  That's silly.  I used troff
                 and vi.  --dbushong
                     \- i dont think people at mit use vi much. they use emacs.
                        they alsi used to use Scribe, not LaTeX. dunno about
                        they also used to use Scribe, not LaTeX. dunno about
                        now. maybe they have Word Creep too.
                 \_ You're silly. My English teachers were happy to accept
                    my punch cards.
                    \_ Ha ha!  Son, in my day, they accepted the fully
                       wired bread board -- and we had to improvise our
                       wire with recycled vaccum tube radio parts.
                    \_ My English teacher was happy to accept my three-hole-
                       punch on her.
                       punching on her.
                       \_ air tight seal?
                          \_ Tight, and sealed with lubes.