I am very disappointed with all IM clients which I´ve ever tried. ICQ 6, Gtalk, Miranda, Trillian, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Gaim... every single one has profound flaws, something do not work, something is disturbing or it´s simply slow. Yesterday I found Digsby (www.digsby.com) and I am quite happy, but still... it is far from perfect.

Do you feel the same? What do you use? Why do you think that the development of IM is so lame, despite there are so many tries?

<< Do you feel the same? >>
Well, yes. But i feel i still have to use what my other friends are using.

<< What do you use? >>
Live Messenger and Google Talk.
(Messenger – friends, Google Talk – Family)

<< Why do you think that the development of IM is so lame >>
I think the IM programmers are so slow cause they're waiting to see what new features the competitors will launch and then they'll improve it.

That's what i think basically.

I use Google talk and aim through Gmail.

I have the Gtalk app on my phone and the aim app on my phone – but I never downloaded AIM to my computer as I hate mucking up my computer with AOL products.

Google Talk. Only Google Talk.

I use the gTalk application on my BlackBerry and on my Windows machines and Pidgin/Audium for Ubuntu and Mac OS X.

I think that IM development is so lame for the exact same reason that you find issues with all of these IM clients; developers are trying to make IM in to more than it was intended for.

All I want from an IM client is the ability to send a short message to a contact and get a reply. That's it. I don't want little smiley faces, file transfers, social networks, bots to give me show times, themes or any of that other crap.

If it weren't for developers trying to shoehorn a bunch of garbage into a service that is meant to be simple you would find fewer features that are broken, incomplete or missing.

Pidgin/Adium is the closest thing for me to perfection. IM. That's all I want IM to be.

You are pointing to the IM service or to the IM programs?
I used Yahoo Messenger and ICQ some time ago; from time to time I use Skype (only for VoIP, really). And currently I use WLM and GTalk (with AIM).
In my country, WLM is the most popular IM service, and that's the reason why I really use it.
I think it's time to use an united and flexible protocol. If Google, Microsoft, AOL and the "big ones" join forces to do something, they can start fighting for the best program and services over a particular protocol, instead of taking "hostages" (users).

I use pidgin but i can't wait for empathy to replace it because it uses telepathy which is really cool and the pidgin developers are sorta universally hated. http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/

dualsub2006 I like simplicity. But file transfer is a great fuctionality. I mean there either stupid clients which are not able to do anything easily (Miranda) or clients like ICQ which is the exact opposite, with very bad design, ads etc. Google Talk is the design which I prefer the most of all clients, smilies and the other stuff from web version would be great, though. I lack easy ports to other networks. Digsby´s integration of Facebook, Twitter and Gmail is pretty great as well.

IM is in my view the ultimate sidebar. Having your contacts always on your screen and be able to do things with them is very useful, much more that all those Google Desktops etc. But it still doesn´t work as it should be. Gmail is for me the best webmail ever, I don´t know too many things which I would like to add. I don´t know about anything as perfect in the IM world.

I share a bit of that thought, jilm. Instant messaging is merging slowly with the e-mail and other kinds of communications (VoIP, video calls, etc). Did you ever heard about Pownce? It's a good approach to the "future" of communication, but it still lacks some ideas.
Last summer I met with two friends to talk about this with two friends/developers, but we couldn't start something because we are studying or working. But if I had the time to do it, I'll try to jump into this area of technology.
If there's someone here interested in starting something (open source), I'll be glad to chat about it.

Coming from a recent Mac converter, I use Adium for chatting on all of the different IM networks. The program isn't perfect as there are several things that bug me like file transfer not working all the time but overall its a great app for the Mac. I use Gtalk, Yahoo, AIM and occasionally MSN with Adium and chat works fine for all of those IM networks.

As for feature rich IM programs, Skype for the Mac seems to have all of the features that I use and works great when chatting with Window's users.

Yahoo Messenger on the Mac is all over the place with my experience so far. File transfers work for the first file but then seem to hang for every file after that when talking to a specific person. Webcam requests sometimes work and sometimes don't with no apparent error message.

It seems that I have to have an account for each IM network since friends don't always use my most favorite IM network. So all in one programs like Adium are a good fit.

I just use Yahoo! Messenger because it shows me email alerts.

Networks – GTalk and Live
Client – Pidgin

If it was up to me i'd be using GTalk, but lots of people I know use MSN/Live (dunno why, and the worst bit is they actualy use the MSN client)

As for the flaws, all the networks are pretty much even, but the clients let them down (MSN has adverts, GTalk would be good if they all had the same features etc.)

Mostly Google Talk & MSN, occasionally AIM & Yahoo! IM. Pidgin is the client as well, the biggest down side is that file transfer never works (for me?).

I created a Firefox address shortcut so when I type "talk" it jumps to the Google Talk web client. http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/popout

None ;)

Did the talk shortcut ages ago. That plus FIrefox portable is sweetness.

So some of you prefer web-based solution? I use mainly the same computer and I think that stand-alone client is just much more useful.

Martin: You can patch MSN to avoid ads (apatch)

When I was using Windows Live Messenger I always added in Messenger Plus!. It's got some sweet functionality. Command line like features in chat are nice. I wish Google Talk had something like that.

Yeah, me too Ben.. :/