We rely heavily on instant messaging, and the Skype client is the current favourite (largely due to the free voice calls and not because of the awkward interface).

When we talk about instant messaging someone these days we say we’ll ‘ping them’. Pinging is a direct reference to the noise most IM clients make when one sends a chat. Pinging is great, it’s fast, efficient and often saves having to write an email or pick up the phone. However, pinging can soon become irritating if it’s poorly used.

A colleague and I were discussing this and we both agree that sometimes a ping makes life easier and sometimes it doesn’t. More often than not, the neat brevity of a ping can become a distracting annoyance.

So, for a laugh, we came up with the following 10 commandments for happier ping life:

1. IM does not replace the phone or email – use them all when suitable.
2. If you’re dealing with a regular contact, start your IM chat with a direct question and question mark. If you open with greeting (Hi, Hello, Yo, whatever) than you have distracted your contact who then has to wait for the question.
3. Use proper sentence-case capitalisation. Never use all-caps as it will look like you’re SHOUTING and that is liable to irritate.
4. Use question marks if you want a response.
5. Use ellipses if you don’t really require a response.
6. Respond to pings with question marks and don’t bother responding to pings with ellipses.
7. There’s no need to officially sign-off, avoid the temptation to say good-bye. Again, that good-bye ping is just another unnecessary distraction.
8. brb meaning be-right-back is very useful for breaking a conversation and dealing with a phone-call, door-bell, earthquake, whatever.
9. Keep you status updated then your contacts can see what you’re doing without having to ask. Additionally you could consider using a service like Twitter to manage your status.
10. Don’t rush, take time to explain yourself clearly and concisely.

Post from: Sky Rocket

Ping (instant messaging) etiquette

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