For those of you using both AOL’s Instant Messenger (AIM) and ICQ, there are signs that the upcoming verson of AIM may finally allow users of both services to communicate with each other. This news has been anticipated since 1998, when AOL bought Mirabilis, the company behind ICQ. I haven’t used ICQ in some time, but I always liked it better than AIM. Recent versions have been really bloated and buggy IMO, so maybe a new front-end will make things smoother.

After reading comments on this story at MetaFilter, I realized that I should have mentioned Trillian, an instant messaging client that handles AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, MS Messenger, and IRC. I tried it a while ago and thought it wasn’t bad, and I’ve seen mostly positive reviews. I stopped using it because I really don’t use instant messaging all that much anymore, but the convenience of Trillian might make it worth looking at. Another alternative mentioned in the thread is Jabber, which I haven’t tried but which has similar features to Trillian, and is open-source to boot.