Despite the recent entry of Google into the Instant Messenging arena, Google Talk (GTalk) hasn’t really gotten any boost in terms of usage and popularity. Ever since the time when ICQ was still the IM client of choice, I can only think of Yahoo! Messenger as the most popular one based from observation.
MSN Messenger seems to the be most popular IM client in office settings, maybe because it’s a built-in software in Windows and it can be easily manipulated from within the network. The last 3 big companies I worked with allows MSN but not YM or ICQ.
Yahoo Meseenger on the other hand is most popular among teen-age kids mainly because internet cafes have them and web cam support is readily available among others.
ICQ is seems to be a thing of the past. I haven’t seen a PC with ICQ installed in it for quite a while now. Anybody else still using it?
Google Talk on the other hand is still inadequate in so many levels. All hype and fireworks but lacks the feature necessary to grab market share. Still I prefer it for its simplicity. If only I could convince all 300 of my YM contacts to move over to Gtalk. 😀