Stanford University's website. You can find various information ranging from admissions to academics to dorm life.

The Program in Writing and Rhetoric, affectionately referred to as PWR by Stanford students is a required freshman course. In it, students learn the various tools to writing good papers and finish off their PWR requirement by writing a research paper.

"The Pew Internet & American Life Project will create and fund original, academic-quality research that explores the impact of the Internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source for timely information on the Internet's growth and societal impact, through research that is scrupulously impartial." (Taken from Pew's About Us page.)

The UCLA CCP publishes comprehensive reports on the effect of the Internet on various sociological issues. "The UCLA Center for Communication Policy is a forum for the discussion and development of policy alternatives addressing the leading issues in media and communication. Communication policy at its core begins with the individual and the family." (Taken from the CCP's About the Center page.)

Although has very little research to do with instant messaging, this site provides much research about various online cultures, of which instant messaging is slowly forming its own niche. "The Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies is an online, not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to research, teach, support, and create diverse and dynamic elements of cyberculture. Collaborative in nature, RCCS seeks to establish and support ongoing conversations about the emerging field, to foster a community of students, scholars, teachers, explorers, and builders of cyberculture, and to showcase various models, works-in-progress, and on-line projects." (Taken from RCCS's main page.)

The Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society (SIQSS) studies the social effects of the Internet and attempts to determine the ramifcations of this information revolution. It takes a scientific, unbiased approach to determining the social change brought about by the Internet revolution. They publish IT & Society.

>> IT & Society

IT & Society, short for Internet Technology and Society, is a scholarly web-journal, that publishes the results and findings of SIQSS scholars.

One of the most popular forms of instant messaging. Easy to use. All you need to do is sign up for a permanent screen name and set up a buddy list. It currently has SMS (text messaging to cell phones) capabilites.

While the authors of this site hardly use ICQ--short for "I seek you"--anymore, ICQ is still an important legacy in the development of instant messaging. Currently owned by AOL / Time Warner, ICQ requires, instead of a screen name, a number unique to the user given upon registration. A common reason for the discontinued use of ICQ is its file size and system requirements, but ICQ, unlike AIM, keeps logs of all messages and allows one's screen names to change.

A relatively new instant messaging system and realtively unknown to the authors of this site. Download for yourself and see. It allows other Yahoo! users surfing Yahoo! sites to see if you are online.

Microsoft's version of an IM system. Though less successful than its AOL counterpart, MSN Messenger is quickly becoming a popular IM program because of its innovative smileys. It is also able to hold real-time, Internet video chatting, checking MSN e-mail accounts, and other functions (exclusive to Microsoft Networks, of course) aside from instant messaging. MSN Messenger comes prepackaged with Internet Explorer.

The best of all four worlds. While Trillian is still a software under development (by Cerulean Studios) and hence has many glitches, bugs, and the like, the advantage it has over the other four is its ability to cross-talk--I can talk to my AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger friends simultaneously. In essence, Trillian is the unified IM system.

This site presents the studies of Hazella Bowmani, Sara Hernandez-Villegas, and Nicholas Miyake, also students in our Stanford writing class. Their study pertains to Internet commerce and the free market online--more specifically, the proliferation of MP3s.

Jennifer Chien and Tommy Grano of Stanford University conducted studies related to the evolution of language in the context of Stanford University. This site presents their study clearly and integrates various linguistic theories. Grano examines the attitude of Stanford students towards particular forms of Netspeak (i.e. "l8r," "brb," "g2g," et al.). Chien explores the academic effects of the long term use of Netspeak.

Albert Andersen and Sonia Samagh investigate the nature of community in Stanford University dorms manifested in the dorm mailing list. Because a dorm community provides a real-space foundation for the online extension, Anderson and Samagh want to determine the outcome of such interaction by examining e-mail messages and, for Anderson in particular, flames.

Candace Frazier, Rebecca Thal, and Tam Vo take a spin on the presentation of their reports by using a weblog format instead of a website. They explore various virtual communities ranging from the greater Stanford community to a theatrical group and finally a Yahoo! group. They intend to explore these communities more in depth by creating a community of their own--the group weblog.