Remember how you couldn't send emails to your friends who used Eudora, because you were using Pine? That's because it never happened. That shortcoming would never fly, yet we put up with these exact bugaboos on a regular basis. I'm getting real close to dropping all IM activity altogether until the brands get their acts together. That's likely to never happen, because we have huge egos at stake. With a straight face, you can't tell me that THIS emoticon is any better than THAT emoticon. Next, you're going to tell me that I can't use THIS keyboard to type characters onto THAT screen?! Gimme a break – this is getting old, quick. I don't care if Google's Talk is using Jabber – when the rest of them aren't, it doesn't do *ME* or *US* any good. Feh. More over on Lockergnome.