Abstract: A system and method are disclosed for selectively updating software and sending other information, such as advertisements, to an IM client device based on client-side behavior vectors collected from the IM client. Behavior vectors are information related to a software component, such as IM client messenger, client device, and a user of the client device, including, but not limited to core software, optional software, advertisements displayed, usage data, performance data, and client meta data.

Abstract: A system and method are disclosed for selectively updating software and sending other information, such as advertisements, to an IM client device based on client-side behavior vectors collected from the IM client. Behavior vectors are information related to a software component, such as IM client messenger, client device, and a user of the client device, including, but not limited to core software, optional software, advertisements displayed, usage data, performance data, and client meta data.

Abstract: A reliable IM system is disclosed including an end-to-end mechanism to make sending and receiving IM text messages more reliable. The reliable IM system may include a reliability-enabled client device server device, each including a reliability-enabled messenger component for adding message ID numbers to outgoing IM messages and sending message-specific acknowledgments (ACK) back to a sending client. The reliable IM system may resend a sequenced message N times when the message is identified as missing. The reliability-enabled client and server may be used to communicate with either reliable or non-reliable clients (for example, clients that do not have the reliability-enabled messenger component). An offline storage may be used to accept and store IM messages for offline clients while sending ACKs back for the received messages. Duplicate and lost sequenced messages are handled by deleting duplicate messages and resending lost sequenced messages at the client and/or server to maintain normal IM transactions.