IM technology has taken SEVERAL steps backwards in the past decade.  Ugh.  *throws up arms*  Back in my day, we had sensible contact lists, groupings, text formatting, reliable offline message delivery that WORKS (and informs you of when it's being used), all in a nice little desktop client that conveniently resided on the side of your screen.  Even ICQ was better than this nonsense.

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I know I've always said that technology has made it more difficult to connect with people, but I never meant it this literally.  Ugh!