A chat can start in two ways: By you or by somebody that wants
to chat with you.

You can contact someone for a chat, or just double-click on their
account name, and then type your first message.
If you want to chat with somebody currently not in your list, go
to People and choose Contact User... . Type in the account
name and click OK.
When you or one of your buddies initiates a chat, the AIM servers
connect your clients so you can send messages back and forth. But
the BeAIM client that displays all messages sent and received, and
lets you in that way keep track of your conversation with the other
person. There may be a small delay from the time you sent a message
until it appears on the other person's display.
While you communicate with another person, BeAIM will display their
screen name. It is possible to participate in multiple conversations
at once.
Making Use of Bots
Chat bots can be both fun and practical. For the AIM protocol there
excists several bots. A chat bot is an application that can answer
questions through an instant messenger interface. For instance,
the Hungarian BeOS User Group has
a bot on their IRC-channel (#beos.hu on irc.ircnet.org) that tells
you the upcoming TV-shows. Another example is the most popular BeShare
server.
Start a chat with the "buddy" ZolaOnAOL:

As you can see, this AIM bot is designed to deliver games (she
plays hangman with you - just type hangman), be an online
dictionary and thesaurus. It can also give information about the
weather in various cities across United States and stock quotes
from Wallstreet.

For a comprehensive list of Zola's functions, Type 'MENU' in your
IM window.
Others have also been chatting with ZolaOnAOL.
Another bot that might come handy for American BeAIM users is AOLYellowPages.
The name should say it all, it looks up phone numbers and addresses.
Configurating alerts
As mentioned, BeAIM is constantly checking your buddies online
statuses and if they are sending you any messages. By working in
the background, BeAIM lets you concentrate on other work and tells
you throug a series of audiable alerts what is happening.
The various of audiable alerts can be removed or changed in Sounds
preferences.
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