SL IM - Is there a way to communicate with people in game when im not logged in??

I'm curious if there is some way to communicate with my friends that are online and in game when I am not. It would be nice to be able to carry on conversations even out of game. Is there a way to do this? If so how?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Under Edit->Preferences->Chat/IM make sure that Send IM to Email is checked. If you need to change the email address that your offline IMs are going to, you can do that at https://secondlife.com/account/email.php

With this option, you can answer IMs that are sent to you while you're offline by replying to the email that is generated.

It should be noted that somebody has to offline IM you once before you can reply to them. However, after that initial email is generated, you can send emails to that reply-to address at any time and they will be delivered as IMs to the original sender.

Supposedly (according to a direct Linden inquiry), the reply-to address will only work for three days. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be three days after it was initially generated or three days after last use, however, they don't appear to be currently wiping out those sessions at all. I have an open session that I've been pinging periodically for the past month that is still valid.

Thank you. Now what if I want to intiate the conversation with someone who is in game? Is there a way for me to contact them direct through email without them IM'ing first?

Unfortunately, no... a top priority with IM-to-email was not allowing someone to spam SL users with it. Since the current system requires that the person you contact with email IMs you first, and the address you use is a temporary IM session only good for a few hours, we haven't had a problem with that so far.

It would be great if there was a seperate IM client that allowed communication with people in game even when your not. Everquest did this about two years ago. Are there any plans to do something like this for SL?

A few hours, three days, a month ...

I build a object that sits in world, and I can send email to, and if I include a key or a pre-set name (set in script) it IMs the message in world from the email i sent..

As object keep there email address as long as not picked up, so can email it and use it to offline IM people in world...

BUT it does not take a message back, and then send to me...might add this, if possible never looked into that yet..

If people don't mind paying me an RL fee I can act as a proxy, just email/call me and I'll IM them.