Pidgin does it all. You use it for all IM.

Art, I use AIM, Google Talk and Yahoo with Pidgin.
So, what ever service you use, Pidgin most likely can handle.

What threw me a curve was when I went to sign up for Yahoo or Google, they both
said "requires windows". I guess that is if you want to use their actual
messenger program. I assume Pidgin will take the place of their messenger
program under Ubuntu?

Yes Art those IMs were built for the Windows environmemt.

http://kopete.kde.org/

The IM Protocols are AIM, Bonjour, Facebook, Gadu-Gadu, Googletalk,
Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, NateOn, QQ, RVP, SILC, Simple,
Sipe, SNPP Plugin, Sametime, WLM, XMPP, Yahoo, and Zephyr

So you have alot of choices to choose from.

You can use any or all of the services offered with Pidgin. I have
Yahoo, Aim, and MSN that I use.

I have a yahoo account. Can I send a msg to someone at AOL or do I have to have
an AOL account to manage in Pidgin?

If you have a yahoo acct and you want to chat with a AOL user, you have
to have a aol acct.

You can sign up for an account without downloading their client.

as anyone successfully got yahoo voice
chat + video chat to work with gyachi?or knows any other way to get yahoo
voice+video chat working?? if possible even for gtalk..

Why not use Meebo [web based] - nothing to install and i reckon
quicker and better than Pidgin or Kopete. For voice why not use VOIP
like Skype or ekiga

I prefer Kopete. Pidgin is on decline because Gnome has switched to Empathy.
It will stay around, but it won't be the default IM client so will likely
decline in usage. This is not to say that it isn't good. The project has be
fraught with splits and poor decisions that have caused some users and
developers, especially the folks at Gnome, to give up on it. Kopete is KDE,
but it works in Gnome.

Install them both and find which you prefer. I find Empathy difficult to
like, but they say that it will continue to improve. Like Pidgin it is ugly
in comparison to Kopete which uses Qt4 and has and smooth and sophisticated
look. I am biased though and find Gnome in general ragged looking compared
to KDE 4.2.

With Yahoo instant pestering... I mean messenger.. You can just go to the main
web page and click on Messenger. You do not need to DL any thing.

but i dont think meebo support voice & video chat , does it?? skype works
too , but most of my contacts are on yahoo/gtalk..

i've just had a go on web YIM and it is very much quicker
than it used to be.

voice and video chat support? why does one want to use IM
for voice and video chat. VOIP like skype is the tool for that. I use
meebo for IM because i can have gtalk, yim, aim, mim and icq all open
at once - and it is fast.

Because skype, as good as it is, is still closed, still has problems,
and is just ONE of many choices

a LOT of my contacts use yahoo/gtalk for voice+video .. things are partly
working with gyachi and empathy , but im still missing out!!

Apologies... i didn't realise skype had problems. I haven't used it
for over a couple of years now. I used it just as an IM as lots of
folk do. Video conferencing i didn't want and my old windoze PC
couldn't cope with the extra required resources... that's when i fell
out with skype - along with its updates about every other month. The
linux version i tried and that was fine but by then i'd lost contact
with the people and there seemed no point.

To me there are too many IM apps and that after a while is a little
self defeating. Hence why i chose to stick with meebo which copes with
different operators well.

You know that, and I know that, but some of the people I want to videoconference
with don't know that. If all they have is MSN Messenger....

Why not email them and suggest they downl;oad and use what you do. Not
everyone uses the same program in Linux or Windows so sometimes you have
a liaison to do so.

If I do that, they might come back with a suggestion that I use QQ -- and I'm
not prepared to do that. I've never seen a stable system on which QQ was used.
(QQ is the most popular IM program in China, and I had/have close ties to a
number of people in China.)

Besides, Skype is only slightly better for videoconferencing than Messenger.