People leaving AIM for Google Talk and Facebook?

Read Write Web has an interesting article on chat integration: Why IM Interoperability May Just be a Dream:

Interoperability between instant messaging (IM) clients is something a lot of users have wished for. More specifically, we wish it was standard and provided right out of the box instead of having to turn to third parties such as Adium, Digsby, Trillian, or Pidgin. Yet there seems to be a problem with the concept of interoperability for the companies of the more popular IM clients.

I'm wondering how much the interoperability really matters with the growth of XMPP services through Google and Facebook? I'm personally seeing more and more people who I used to chat with via AIM making themselves available through Google Talk. How about the rest of you, are you seeing your peeps move away from AIM? Maybe interoperability just doesn't matter because we finally have a critical mass of people using XMPP-based services.

The proprietary chat gig is up-- finally!

With Facebook's announcement that they are moving forward to enable cross-platform chat using XMPP/Jabber the chat wars are effectively over. With Facebook and Google on the XMPP. bandwagon it's just a matter of time until the proprietary services either switch or become totally irrelevant. It's about time this happened. This was the world's biggest no-brainer: Using Facebook Chat via Jabber.

Since the launch of Facebook Chat, we've received a lot of positive feedback from users about being able to connect instantly with their friends on Facebook. With Chat fully launched and growing steadily, we've started working on more new features to enhance the Chat experience.

Right now we're building a Jabber/XMPP interface for Facebook Chat. In the near future, users will be able to use Jabber/XMPP-based chat applications to connect to Facebook.

Sorting your buddy list

It was with interest today that when I looked at my Buddy List I noticed that it was organized alphabetically. Why alphabetically? I decided to search to see what I might learn and came across AOL asking the same question: Buddy List Sorting

We’re working on some upgrades to the way that you can see friends on your Buddy List. We have two options and are curious to see which one you’d prefer. Take a look and leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Option 1: A sort feature that alphabetizes buddies within your buddy groups, and enforces the alphabetized order at every sign-on.

OR Option 2: A one-time sort that alphabetizes the buddies within your groups but allows you to move individual buddies around (say a best friend to the top of your BFF group).

How about none of the above? Of their options #2 makes more sense, but my first choice would be to have them sorted by who I chat with the most. My second choice would be to have them sorted by who I talked to last. I'm almost certain that alphabetizing them would not be anywhere on my list. I just find it interesting that I had never noticed how they were organized before today. I seriously need to start paying more attention to this sort of stuff.