(Imagine the Star Wars way of text scrolling up the screen while the theme is playing in the background:) For years, the stage of the Instant Messaging services had been dominated by the strong Yahoo! armada which reigned supreme among its peers, squashing in its infancy any other service's attempt to overthrow it. It was all quiet, as the Yahoo! Sith started building the Death Star, also known as Messenger for Windows Vista, an experience never seen before and that would change the way the Universe looked at instant messaging.

The time was right for a new challenge to emerge out of the backwaters of some garage in Menlo Park, California. It was named Google, and would soon develop Google Talk, the one to challenge Yahoo!'s supremacy. How was that for an intro? Now don't get me wrong, the stage was set with only mild exaggeration, and I only took into account the people who choose their instant messaging service and don't just use the default Windows Live.

The fight is being fought right now at an user level, each of the two is constantly trying to add to its slew of features something shinier that would top the other. Yahoo! has audibles and hidden emoticons, Google Talk has just introduced the smilies in hiding. There's a crab available (V.v.V), a diabolic… something (}:-)), a broken heart (Valentine's isn't so far behind us