Instant Messaging Service identifies its users by unique Instant
Messaging URLs, which follow the standard conventions for Web URLs.
The
Because users need a more convenient format than URLs to
identify themselves and other users, users always use
Users have been using e-mail addresses for a long time, and because administrators would rather not introduce another type of address, Instant Messaging allows the use of standard SMTP addresses as Instant Messaging addresses in most situations. For example, a user whose SMTP address is someone@microsoft.com might be known to the service as http://im.microsoft.com/instmsg/aliases/someone/; however, other users can refer to this user by the Instant Messaging address, someone@microsoft.com. Some situations may require the use of the more fully qualified Instant Messaging address (referred to as the extended Instant Messaging address), someone@im.microsoft.com.
Instant Messaging allows users to refer to each other by their SMTP addresses, but internally uses the corresponding unique Instant Messaging URLs. Clients convert Instant Messaging addresses in the following way: an Instant Messaging address of user@domain is converted to the Instant Messaging URL http://im_domain/instmsg/aliases/user/. The service uses the Domain Name Service (DNS) service location (SRV) resource record to look up the im_domain portion that corresponds to a given domain.
Related Topics
Instant Messaging Domains Give Users Access to the Service