All of us having a virtual life need an Instant Messenger, possibly open source but others are good too. there are some very popular among the bloggers and some among the techies.

In any case they are everywhere, and although sometimes they raise concerns among managers and sysops, I don't see many negative sides in using them, they help me contacting my friends, my contacts on the other side of the world, my team mates... I just have one big problem with them:

What do you mean by "I'm not available" ?!?!