The N900 has instant messaging and VOIP totally integrated into the interface, but officially it only supports this integration with Skype, Google Talk, Jabber/Facebook and Ovi. Unofficially though, more services including MSN / Live, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, QQ and others can also be used in an integrated way. The video below shows exactly how to activate them, it only takes a minute and you only have to do it once.
Click here for a complete list of All About Maemo's Nokia N900 Tutorials
The N900 has instant messaging and VOIP totally integrated into the interface, but officially it only supports this integration with Skype, Google Talk, Jabber/Facebook and Ovi. However, by installing a plugin you can actually add integrated support for many more services including MSN / Live, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, QQ, Gadu Gadu, GroupWise and Sametime.
The video below shows the complete installation process for this plugin:
(You can also see this video on All About Maemo's YouTube Channel.)
Once you've installed a service your service's contacts may be added your N900's Contacts application. If there's duplication, you can merge contacts by selecting them until a "Merge" option appears, then select the contact you want to merge it with. If it talks about naming conflicts during the merging, just enter the name that you want the contact to be known as.
Some people reported trouble with duplicates appearing after merging on earlier versions of this plugin, however when we tried the plugin the merging worked fine.
To get a more detailed description of activating an IM or VOIP service, see our videos on Skype on the N900 and Google Talk on the N900.