[romanows]

Instant messaging is synchronous two-way communication like voice and video. I'm not sure what you mean by "fluid" conversation, though. Voice is good for people who aren't good at typing or expressing themselves via text. However, I don't see what additional conversationally-useful information is conveyed by video of people's faces.

Maybe I just spend too much time listening to the radio and podcasts? Maybe it was growing up in an era where voice phone conversations were more common than texting and facetime?