YMSN! vs AOL or is it Google?

Just saw this off Fark and now on Google News - Y! Messenger and MSN to be interoperable. It may just be me, but way back in the day, it used to be that most of the people I knew were on Y! and very few on MSN. But that is the opposite now as just about everyone has an MSN account. I think one of the major reasons for this is that with Google Talk out there using Jabber, they are afraid of more people leaving for Google and it's increasingly integrated network based applications and other services. MS has much to lose as people may look more to Open Office/Star Office to save money and then through the "bands work together" mentality, keep the rest of their network applications Google as well. Yahoo on the other hand seems to be fading to me (I used to be a big fan, but have since moved on) even though they may have the edge over MS in some areas still (and they may have a better email system than Google according to some (Random Blog, Another random Blog, C|Net)). On top of all this - Skype, even though it's now part of eBay is still offering a better communication solution for many people. At the end of the day, when this happens - and hopefully hits the Mac as well - it'll be a good thing for many who like me have accounts on both and have had to deal with the various applications that combine services. One thing that we'll have to wait and see is how the new applications from either side are developed and if they will allow their own unique elements to go over to the other side. After all, they both spent a load of cash adding "functionality" to make sending text messages more "fun". Technorati Tags: MSN, Yahoo Messenger, Google Tools