Online conversation became part of ordinary work and personal life. The original article described messaging as one of the most familiar ways to exchange news, opinions and files with other people.
From chat rooms to contact lists
The author connected instant messengers with earlier IRC chat rooms and applications such as ICQ. Instead of entering only a shared discussion room, a user could maintain a list of people and contact them directly.
The article's examples included Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and Google Talk. It also noted that different services were more popular in different countries and communities.
The problem with separate networks
If one person used one service and a friend used another, the two accounts did not necessarily communicate. A possible response was for one person to create an account on the other's service.
As contact lists spread across several services, running a separate application for each could become inconvenient. That was the problem multi-protocol clients tried to address.
One client, several accounts
A multi-protocol application could provide one interface for accounts on several supported networks. It did not merge those accounts into a single universal identity; each service still had its own connection and account requirements.
The user could then see conversations from different services in one place without switching between as many applications. The value depended on which protocols the client actually supported at the time.
The open-source examples
The original article named Miranda IM and Pidgin as examples and welcomed the availability of source code. It saw free software as a way for a wider community to participate in the development of communication tools.
Open source describes the software and its licensing; it does not guarantee that an external messaging provider will keep an old protocol available indefinitely.
Why the compatibility date matters
The services listed in this archive changed, closed or replaced protocols over time. A historical list should therefore not be used to decide which accounts a current client can connect to.
The related introductions to Pidgin and Instantbird preserve more of the context.