Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (8.0)

You can now communicate with your friends and love ones anywhere in the world using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (8.0. You can have a free PC-to-PC calls in just and easy click. You can share files up to 1GB and discuss it in real time, listen to LaunchCast Radio, hide your presence from your online buddies using stealth settings and a lot more.

With the new Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (8.0), you can now send instant messages to your friends using their Windows Live Messenger. This new Yahoo! Messenger is also capable of handling plugins which would add you IM'ing experience to next generation messaging.

find out more: here

Now anyone can Talk

Google Talk is now open to everyone! Until now, users needed a Gmail account to use Google Talk. Now, anyone can use the service by creating a Google Account.

Happy Talking!

source: Google Blog

What is Instant Messaging?

Instant messaging or IM is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.

Instant messaging requires the use of a client program that hooks up an instant messaging service and differs from e-mail in that conversations are then able to happen in realtime. Most services offer a presence information feature, indicating whether people on one's list of contacts are currently online and available to chat. This may be called a contact list. In early instant messaging programs, each letter appeared as it was typed, and when letters were deleted to correct typos this was also seen in real time. This made it more like a telephone conversation than exchanging letters. In modern instant messaging programs, the other party in the conversation generally only sees each line of text right after a new line is started. Most instant messaging applications also include the ability to set a status message, roughly analogous to the message on a telephone answering machine.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_Messaging