One Client to Rule Them All

by Shawn Powers

I Twitter. I Dent. I Blog (duh, you're reading it now). At times I've Plurked, Facebooked, Skyped, and Gtalked. The big problem is that each socialization protocol has its own client. I currently have 2 monitors on my desk and one is almost full of widgets and applications to keep up. I have:

* Twhirl for Twitter
* Pidgin for IM
* Skype for Skype :)
* X-Chat for IRC
* Prism for Identi.ca (not always open)

Basically my second monitor is just a dump zone for apps to keep me connected. I am at least thankful that Pidgin will manage most of my IM accounts (AIM, G-Talk, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo). I also realize Twhirl will manage Identi.ca for me, but it does it in yet another window. Ugh.

The only thing that comes close for me is Ping.fm. What I'd really like to see is something like Twhirl support Ping.fm directly. I might be able to actually get some work done on my second monitor. :)

I'm curious, how do you do your online communications?