IMWatching
Someone has got around to implementing another idea I had years ago (1999, to be exact, although of course I doubt they got the idea from this site!) about gathering statistics from instant messenging programs. IMWatching records when buddies are offline, idle, active, and away. Unfortunately, it appears only to work for tracking AOL buddies, but I’m sure something for ICQ and MSN will come along (the protocol specs for the two programs are widely available). Not sure how useful it is for people like me who leave their machine on 24/7, but most IM programs have auto-away statuses these days.
I’ve recently started to use MSN Messenger (I don’t really know why myself, but I quite like the ability to change your username at will so you can use it like a mini bulletin board). My account which I can be added under is: *** [at] gmail.com