Unified Instant Messaging Clients?

Hynman writes "It's getting silly - I have 4 different types of messaging accounts: ICQ, AOL IM, MS Messenger, Hotmail and regular email clients all run on my computer at the same time, and they all have overlapping capabilities. Is there any effort out there to produce a unified messaging client, that supports all types of accounts, and will respond through the correct medium (i.e. the medium that the message is delivered in). Just plug in the account information for each medium, and it performs messaging functions of all services frome one program and one interface." This is why standards for instant messengers should be created. Something like this would be extremely useful. Comments?