IM 'popularity contest'

Heard of AIMFight.com? Your favorite teenager probably has (especially if s/he's an AIM user). It's billed as such, but it's hardly a real personality contest. It's a Web site on top of a bunch of techie algorithms that bascially look at how many AIM buddy lists you're on (so you can still be popular and use MSN or Yahoo Messenger, for Pete's sake!). Here's how AIMFight describes itself. The Washington Post, though calling it a "self-esteem check," does provide some context: "Instant messaging, you will know, is the way tens of millions of Americans connect with their buddies faster than email. Beginning this week, the 50 million users of AIM, America Online's version of instant messaging - including nearly half of all Americans between the ages of 13 and 25 - could perform a self-esteem check by visiting AimFight.com." The "fight" part is just a traffic-raising way to get the visitor to type his or her screenname into one box and that of a friend or rival into another, click, and find out who's on more buddy lists. It's good fun, but let's hope teenagers (or adults) don't read to much into the results!