Systems, Methods, and Media for Playback of Instant Messaging Session History

A machine-accessible medium containing instructions effective, when executing in a data processing system, to cause said data processing system to perform operations comprising:

• during an instant messaging session where one or more instant messaging events occur, determining a timestamp associated with the one or more instant messaging events;
• recording an indication of the one or more instant messaging events and their associated timestamps;
• receiving one or more playback commands;
• and
• in response to the received playback commands, displaying playback of the one or more instant messaging events based on their associated timestamps.

A client computer system of an instant messaging system, the client computer system comprising:

• a communications module, the communications module being adapted to send and receive information to and from a second client computer system;
• an instant messaging client to initiate an instant messaging session with the second client computer system via the communications module, the instant messaging client being adapted to send and receive one or more instant messaging events as part of an instant messaging session;
• and
• an instant messaging history module in communication with the instant messaging client, the instant messaging history module being adapted to record an a history of the instant messaging session, the instant messaging history module being further adapted to playback the recorded instant messaging session history.