I might be a little bit behind the times on this one, but today I discovered something very very cool. The Trillian Instant Messenger is an interface that lets you IM across all the major platforms. Thus I now have one Instant Messenger through which I can IM all my MSN and AOL contacts. (And Yahoo and ICQ contacts, but I don't have any of those.) The software is a little more complicated than the other messengers because it keeps all the features available to each other messenger, but you can customize it to simplify. Another great feature is that you can download skins to customize the look. Overall I'm very pleased with it (and it's free).

I could see why such software might be controversial. It basically uses the infrastructures set up my MSN, AOL, etc. and exploits them. AOL has repeatedly tried to block Trillian. I've always wondered how companies could make money off of their messenger programs though. Trillian accepts donations. This coupled with the way they encourage tinkering (they encourage new skins anyway), I think they're on the right track.

After doing a little more searching, I've discovered another alternative called Odigo. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks similar.