Entering CasualSpace… – John Barlow muses about how zero-cost calls (iChatAV) changes things. For me, having presence information is a big plus. Also, I hate making phone calls because it’s so intrusive; dropping an IM seems much better in that regard.
Of course, the presence doesn’t really work that well for me because I’m always signed on w/ multiple computers (still not sure I like AIM’s new routing algorithm), and of course if you’re using iChat, then it does the AIM client thing of popping up incoming messages directly onto your desktop, which is quite intrusive (but at least you can still multitask while that conversation goes on.
(perfect im routing algorithm for me: route based on least idle time, that’d get a message to me 90% of the time; also, cache on server – I should just run my own Jabber server, will be getting hip-deep in that stuff soon anyway)