The Digital Inspiration blog suggests that Facebook's new browser-based chat system, which we stood up against Gmail's web chat yesterday, works well running inside a Firefox sidebar. To anchor it there, simply add this Facebook Chat popout URL from Bookmarks->Organize Bookmarks, and make sure "Load this bookmark in the sidebar" is checked. The intended two-column layout can make the sidebar a little intrusive into your actual browsing, but you can resize to a narrow strip and still get chat functionality, simply by clicking inside the sidebar to re-order things.

On Tuesday we asked for your favourite instant messaging applications, and over 550 comments later, we've culled it down to the most popular five. From web-based chat to desktop clients to tools that combine IM, email, and social networking, your nominations spanned a wide range of instant messaging applications. Let's take a closer look at the five most voted-for apps, and face them off against each other in a final showdown to crown the ultimate favourite.

Mac OS X only: The latest beta 3 release of Yahoo Messenger for Mac adds voice and voicemail capabilities a la Skype. Using Yahoo Messenger, computer to computer voice calls are free, and you can purchase a PhoneOut and/or PhoneIn account to call land line or cell phones, or receive calls on your computer, or even set up call forwarding to land lines or mobile phones. (Rates start at 1 cent/minute in the U.S.) You can also send SMS messages with Yahoo Messenger, and get free voicemail; Yahoo Messenger delivers voicemail as an email attachment to the address you specify. Skype's had all these features for Mac and PC for some time now, so Yahoo's pretty late to the game—but it's still good to have options.

Windows/Linux: Free beta program IM History offers a web-synced way to store instant message chats across multiple computers, and operating systems, from a variety of chat clients. Right now, the service supports AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Skyp, Trillian, and a few other clients, but my pet peeve is Pigin supported only in Linux, leaving dual-booters like me in the cold. That aside, once enabled, IM History lets you access your chat history and contacts from a web interface, and being able to search chats from across platforms—to find, for instance, a link sent long ago— is where many users will find this app convenient. IM History is a free download for Windows and Linux.

Now that Gmail's got AIM support baked into the web interface, Gmailer Steve Rubel commented how nice it will be to have SmarterChild along with your email. Nearly three years ago we first posted about SmarterChild, an AIM bot that can do all sorts of interesting command line-y things, like look up the weather, store notes, trigger timed IM reminders, calculate and convert, and generally answer any kind of question, like "What's the population of Indonesia?" or "What movies are playing near me tonight?" This morning I chatted with SmarterChild about all the stuff it can do, inside Gmail and out.

Not only did Google add coloured labels to Gmail today, they're rolling out AIM compatibility in chat, too. The new AOL Instant Messenger support lets you log into your AIM account to chat with your AIM buddies right inside Gmail. Not sure yet if your AIM chat history is stored in your Gmail account the way GTalk convo's are. Update: AIM chat history does indeed get stored in Gmail. Rock! We're not seeing it just yet, but being an AIM over GTalk user, I'll keep refreshing till I do. To try it out you've got to be using the new version of Gmail in IE7 or Firefox 2. Sign into Chat and hit the Options menu to see the "Sign into AIM" option. Any readers out there get AIM in Gmail yet? Let us know how you like it. Image via Zoorgloob.

Get your favourite site feeds via FeedCrier, a service that delivers updates to your instant messenger client. No download is required; just type in the username for AIM, MSN, Jabber, or Google Talk, along with the website you're interested in getting updates from, and you're done. This would be a good way to get the latest news updates delivered to you almost in real time. FeedCrier is a similar service to web app immedi.at; both are excellent tools for keeping a very close watch on a particular feed.