On Twitter and some instant-messaging services, there is a limit to the number of characters a message can carry.

But now they were fighting for the future of their start-up company, Odigo Inc., and its tiny instant-messaging service.

Other instant-messaging services offer similar capabilities, but Google said the appeal of its system would come from its voice quality, based on audio technology it has developed.

Mr. Deep said Aimster was started, first and foremost, as an instant-messaging service.

In doing so, however, the agency laid down conditions intended to make America Online's popular instant-messaging service compatible with the systems of Internet rivals.

Yahoo is adding video capacity to its instant-messaging service, the company said yesterday.

The agency set conditions intended to make AOL's instant-messaging service compatible with the systems of rivals.

The new instant-messaging service will be available later this year, in downloads off Netscape's home page.

Today, many other instant-messaging services support the use of avatars.

Odigo is expected to use this new round of financing to expand its instant-messaging services to wireless uses, company officials said.