Many people use IM (Instant Messaging) each day. There are many protocols available: AIM, GaduGadu, GroupWise, ICQ, IRC, Jabber, Meanwhile, MSN, WinPopup, Yahoo and probably some other…
I use IRC since my usage of Internet began, then ICQ started to be popular (and my Amiga was connected to academic network via Ethernet), about year later people started switching to GaduGadu and some time later I started using Jabber. Today I use IRC each day (you can catch me on freenode and IRCnet), two Jabber accounts, one ICQ and two GaduGadu (one for private contacts, one for coworkers). My favorite method of IM contact is Jabber, then ICQ (I do not count IRC here as it is not so one-to-one chat). I dislike GaduGadu for its lack of normal features, ignoring privacy and such stuff.
For example — today I added contact of coworker to be able to send some infos to her instead of writing it in email or on sheet of paper. As usual she had to ask someone which number she has (GG use numbers like ICQ does — not names like Jabber or IRC). So I added her just to notice that she has a status ‘not available’. In this shit called GG it does not have to mean that you are not available — it can be that user defined status as ‘hidden’. In ICQ or Jabber this stuff is handled by authorization — if I want someone to be able to see my status I can authorize contact. When I told her that I do not IM with ‘not available’ people she replied ‘Why? I prefer this way and will not change it — you can send me emails.’
Other GaguGagu crap is called ‘conferencies’ which are just few people chat not chatroom/channels. Anyone can start conference with other people — but all people got request ‘do you want to enter conference with NUM1, NUM2, NUM3, NUM4. NUM5’ — lack of any method to block of showing own number to people which I would like to avoid (if NUM3 does not want NUM5 knowing his number he cannot hide after such conference request).