Putting instant messaging on your web site has never been easy. The only way people could get any messaging on their web sites was to use IRC. The popular way to do it was to embed a channel such as with PJIRC. And later on there was the ability to create an IRC chat "widget" with Mibbit. Both methods are so-so at best because they rely on IRC servers...

Web-based instant messaging is something some people swear by while others (like me) still prefer the client. Meebo, one of the better multi-service web-based IMs, now has a Windows app called Meebo Notifier that can run the service without having the browser running, sort of. I say "sort of" because while it is a legitimate app that takes care of...