[dejawolf]

IM gives you the ability to communicate and work with people living on the other side of the globe, which is great. i currently live in norway and work for someone living in USA and germany.
best IM is skype, although sadly, theres very few people using it.
its got the best webphone, its not cluttered with all kinds of stuff like MSN, and its got better memory management, so your computer won't low on memory from running it, and its got a file transfer thats a lot more stable than ICQ.
no welcome screen either, which is good, cos i never read those anyways.
as for forums, worst thing about them is trolls who undermine the whole thread, best thing is heated discussions with strong opinions on both sides.

i kinda prefer the wast amount of information available on the net, theres tons of science forums where you can talk to people directly about physics and that stuff, biologists geologists etc. theres also tank forums where you can talk to real life military personell, and get a feeling of their opinions and they'll share information about how their vehicles works, which is pretty neat.

if i was to put this short, what i like about the internet is that it gives you a lot more details than a library ever could. and if you don't like an article about something, theres sure to be at least 15 other articles on the same subject which is easier to understand. google rules.