To Riamus2...
You are right, people are not choosing for emoticons, because options are not that great, and the most popular software in IRC is mIRC (as you said).
I do not compare IM with IRC. I know what is behind these, I do have an idea about coding. I try to compare the chat environment these offer (as in more technical terms, resources of the client itself interacting with the user). So, what I mean, is that a simple user, wanting to join some IRC network (any network) for the first time, most likely he/she will download mIRC (if uses Windows). Then in his/her head will tend to compare it with IM, just because it is related to chat, and has nothing to do with the coding behind them because he/she does not care.
When you go to a fast-food, and get a burger, you are interested in that burger, you do not want to know how exactly it's made and how a cow dies for it, you want to enjoy your burger.
It's the same here too, people do not care about servers, coding, scripting, etc. they just enjoy the chat.
For those kind of people I suggest emoticons just because it's more fun.
For gooshie...
I am not speaking for those experienced users. I speak for myself and probably for some inexperienced users. In the end they have to compare, as people tend to compare things in their life. And when that comes up, these users do not care about the power and coding of the piece of software, but by graphics, and how much they enjoy using that piece of software.
I tested myself and compared mIRC with other software. It just felt great to have emoticons and feel like your conversation spices up with colors and nice images. Yes, you are very right, mIRC is a very powerful tool on coding, scripting, security, etc., but all these are for pros, we tend to forget that in the end everyone of us is not buying always a new cookie by the taste of it, but because we see it so nicely wrapped up. Images do count a lot... you get my point.
Last edited by Cristian_Xtris; 04/02/10 06:05 PM.
