Freelance journalist Charles Arthur (the ex-technology editor at The Independent) has an interesting piece on what appears to be an imminent instant messaging standards war with AOL/AIM, Yahoo and MSN all said to be planning updates that won't let third party apps work.

So where does the poor old user figure in all this? I have important contacts on Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Skype and Google Talk (my mum because it has the easiest to use interface).

Will I want to suddenly stop communicating with these people? No.

Will I be willing to run five separate IM apps. No.

Will I try to impose my choice of IM on everyone else. No.

Will others impose their choice on me? How could they if they all choose different aps?

Where does all this leave the poor user.

In my case it probably means Skype wins. I already use Skype for business telephony and will continue to do so, therefore its IM app wins by default.