Well, not your actual head - the head of an avatar that you create and customize. Imagine that instead of typing into a chat window and seeing words pop up on a screen, the conversation takes place in balloons above your head. However, the majority of the actual chatting done on messaging services such as AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live is still done by typing text into a chat window. Later instant messaging clients gave you the ability to exchange files and photos and to chat via audio or video.
Although instant messaging has been around in some form for decades, it really didn't take off for public consumption until the late 1980s when America Online (AOL)'s predecessor, Quantum Link, offered a user-to-user messaging system.
