> IMs have had those features for decades Yes, and 90% of my contacts have been “away” 100% of the time for just as long. Presence information is useless, I’ve

> IMs have had those features for decades Yes, and 90% of my contacts have been “away” 100% of the time for just as long. Presence information is useless, I’ve been ignoring it for years. What is the problem you want to avoid? People interrupting you. This is much better solved with a client side option that you control, without relying on the other user’s judgment. I really like the Do Not Disturb feature in iOS and OS X: it works for the entire system instead of a single program and I fully control it, it doesn’t depend on you interpreting my signal that I’m “busy”. Send me whatever messages you want any time you want, if I can respond I will, if I don’t want to be interrupted my phone won't make a bleep no matter how hard you push. Preemptive rebuttal: “the system can turn off notifications when I set myself as away” then why set away in the first place? It has no meaning other than “do not disturb me”.