IM names and personal messages displays
The other day, after reading (and writing about) Stowe Boyd’s post about IM rules, I made a quick scanning of the HCI recent literature about IM and found this article: Broadcasting Information via Display Names in Instant Messaging by Stephanie Smale and Saul Greenberg (ACM Group 2005 Conference)
It’s a good study about why and how people display and change their names + other things in IM. Here are their research questions:
This study investigates how people use the display name feature in IM clients to broadcast information other than one’s name. We do this by capturing changes in each person’s display field as they appear in contact lists over time and over everyday use, by asking people to explain what these changes meant, and by counting, categorizing and analyzing these changes.
1. At what frequency do users change the information in their display field when using an IM client such as MSN Messenger?
2. What are the main communication categories that represent the information held by these display field changes?
3. What is the frequency distribution of these categories?
4. Are changes to the display name related to the demographics of age or sex?
Here are the main results:
1. results show that 58% of our 444 contacts (258 people) never changed the contents of the display field during the three week period. For the remaining 42% of contacts (186 people), we counted a total of 1968 display name changes, or an average of 11 display name changes per person over the three week period, or up to 4 times a week.
(…)
2. the new information fell into seventeen different categories of communication supplied to others. Three themes encompass these categories: Identification (“who am I”?), Information About Self (“this is what is going on with me”) and Broadcast
Message (“I am directing information to the community”).
(…)
3. Younger users may change their display names more frequently than older users; sex does not make a difference.
The figure below shows the different categories they gathered (extracted from the paper):
Another relevant point is that this phenomenon lead to an interface change on MSN:
Some of these capabilities are only now being supplied by a few major IM vendors. For example, the new version of MSN Messenger (v. 7.0), released shortly after our study was performed), includes a dedicated space for adding and editing a personal message.
Why do I blog this? this phenomenon always amazed me (because I tended to do it few years ago and also from an tech observer), so I was pleased to see a study about it. Moreover, it’s connected to research projects we conducted in the past at the university of geneva about awareness and communication (The authors also expands their discussion to a ‘a community bar’ that could display personal messages with presence items, a very greenbergesque topic).
October 20th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
hi there, am a thrid year student, just started blogging and was hopping that we could exchange link since we have the same topic - architecture. thanks, looking forward for your reply. sorry for posting in the comment section, couldn’t find your email add, do delete this post after reading. email me at for response. thank man, architecture rocks!
calvin_ngan[at]hotmail.com
http://mirage-studio.blogspot.com
December 11th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
hello,
i would like to ask you if there is any way of deleting im-names???
December 11th, 2005 at 7:49 pm
where?
January 26th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
please tell me how to delete IM-Names because i really need to know!
March 5th, 2006 at 2:47 am
hey i cant delete that damn IM NAMES shit…makin me mad!!could some one heplp me out here? please and thankyou
March 5th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Yeah I can’t get rid of that crap either…And I can’t talk to anybody on MSN….
March 7th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
first open WINDOWS TASK MANAGER (ctrl+alt+del) then click on PROCESSES. now look for something called ‘IM-svr.exe’ click on it then then END PROCESS.
now goto ur program files folder and delete IM-names folder
March 18th, 2006 at 12:40 am
Thank u fir tellin me i couldnt get rid of that shit thank u fir tellin me!
March 24th, 2006 at 3:12 am
Omg thank god I found out how to delete that!!Thanks!!!Really!
April 17th, 2006 at 1:19 am
thanks…….lifesaver
April 23rd, 2006 at 5:34 pm
I went onto task manager, found it and pressed ”end process” but it still wont delete from my program files?? i cant talk to anyone on msn now becos it comes up so many times i cant even say anything! :S
April 29th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
thanks so much. realy wanted to get rid of im names thanks so much. some people might not be able to get rid of it probably they “end processed” only one of them. on mine i found 3 proceses called ‘IM-svr.exe’ and i had to end process all three before i could delete the folder.
May 18th, 2006 at 10:00 am
thanks so much i was on about a million websites trying to find out how to delete it so i started reading all the comments left and thanks so much to who ever it was who told us how 2 delete it
thanks !!!!
June 6th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
can anyone can tell me how to delete im names im bored of this shit*
June 7th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Hiya, i downloaded this IM names thing and it keeps popping up in my convos saying “i get my screen names from im names.com” and i cant delete it cos i dont know much about computers! please help me!
July 1st, 2006 at 3:00 pm
to those who cant delete im names, read thru the messages that have been left as some nice man told us all how to delete it. if i remember you press ctrl,alt + delete to bring up windows task manager, then click on the ‘process’ tab, find IM-svr.exe end the process on all files named this, then go to add/remove programs to remove it from there if not already done. i had to restore my pc to an earlier date to sort the problem out for myself & found this to work. good luck to all who are stressed out with this shit. why cant they just list the bloody names on a web page like most normal sites. if you still want im names then only trust the sites that you dont have to download anything, you can just copy & paste em instead. good luck to you all, ann-marie xx
July 17th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
thank….you….lord
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Nice to see this well done summary… and I had to chuckle about the “The authors also expand their discussion to a ‘a community bar’ … a very greenbergesque topic.
Didn’t know that I had become and adjective
Saul Greenberg
September 2nd, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Omg thank you sooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU [Not that way]
But ive been trying to get rid of it since well forever!! Thank you for your help!!
xXx
September 3rd, 2006 at 5:58 am
Hit ctrl + alt+ delete, select task manager, then click processes.
Look for a file named “IM-svr.exe”
select it and click end process.
Then go to the programs file and delete the program.
(Note: there may be more than one file named “IM-svr.exe” so scroll through the whole list and delete all of them.)
October 26th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
i dont have to scroll down ctrl+alt+del because i have ‘kaspersky anti-virus! and he said that was a “trojan virus”! and i countld downloadd
November 1st, 2006 at 10:14 pm
I DONT GET HOW I DELETE THE AUTOMESSAGE WHICH AUTOMATICLY SHOWS ON MSN IT IS SO ANNOYING HELP PLEASE!
November 7th, 2006 at 7:51 am
I CANT DELETE THE IM NAMES AND ITS DRIVING ME INSANE. IT IS REALLY STUPID AND IT KEEPS APPEARING. CANT U TELL ME PLS HOW TO GET RID OF IT! HELP ME PLS!
November 15th, 2006 at 7:33 am
i’ve tried it form task manager but i have 2 every time i turn on the computer go and delete it or it will keep appearing. i’ve deleted it from my computer but pls help
November 23rd, 2006 at 4:16 pm
You are a god send!!!! I’m usually really good around a computer, and can figure things out on my own, but this IM Names crap was driving me up the wall!!! I had no clue where it came from or how to get rid of it. Thankyou sooo much!!!!
November 26th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
when i click ctrl alt and delete it comes up with taske manager but it doesnt say anything about processes, it just says task and status there are not other tabs. ive tried add/remove programms but it hasnt done anything and they keep appearing on my conversations. ive tried everything please help
November 26th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH MAN! i kept wanting to open the box of this guy i like to see his dp but it i couldn’t without him knowing! THANKS!
xxxx
November 28th, 2006 at 5:49 am
i tryed to delete the IM NAMES program from my program files but it won’t delete the file from it says “Access is denied and make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not in use.” it’s really starting to piss me off if anyone can help me please do. thanks
December 14th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Right forget ctrl+alt+del crap , its rubbish , works , but very confusing for the nin tech minded , also like 500 registry keys are still stuck on your system (fgs dont start editing registry keys newbies!) anyhow , one program which i stubled upon a while ago , its www.clevertutorial.com/im-names from there you can download one program that deletes im names totally and i meen totally! from your system , without you having to do a thing oh and add something do the thanks book , someone did this to help us off their own back so give them a little thanks
December 20th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
that ‘im names’ bullshit did my head in, now i can rest and nobody has to die…who ever made that program is an asshole.
thnks shali
December 30th, 2006 at 7:33 am
hey that im-names advertisement is really annoying me on msn i want to know how to delete it can u plz tell me!???
January 27th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
omfg!!!!
thankyou soooooooo much! its happened to me for like forever, people have even stopped talkin to me cos theyre sick of it poppin up on them!
thanks again =]
jay
March 13th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
omg its is really duin my head in i have unistalled msn the lot and it wont disapear off of my desktop the man or woman who med it r total fuckin wankers
April 10th, 2007 at 12:54 am
hey guys i was sooooo happy when i finaly found this site but i tryed the anti-im names but it doesn’t work and when i press alt+ctrl+delete it doesn’t do n e thing either.. i donno what to do n e more.. can som1 please help me
It would be rly rly rly nice 
April 24th, 2007 at 3:37 am
hahahahahaha
finally i am free from the curse that is known as IM names
never shall i download such stupid shit again!!!!!!
June 26th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
please tell e how to delete IM names! It is driving me crazy and won’t allow me to talk to my friends!!! Please reply quickly!!!
November 18th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Please tell me how to delete IM names, i tried deleting msn messenger and i found the hidden im names folder but now it is saying i cant delete it because it is write protected or in used which it isnt! please help!!
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:13 am
…..i had tried ur instructions, however…i get this messg saying that if i continue wat im doin then my computer may have some inabilitie sor loose files…..wat do i do:s