There’s no arguing that Twitter & Facebook are the top 2 social networking sites today.  Those 2 might change tomorrow, especially with Google Wave coming down the pipe.

Email platforms vary from user to user, and from corporation to corporation.

Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail/Live are the big 3 from home based email, and Exchange is slowly being embraced by Google Apps (with Gmail as the back engine or UI)

But what about Instant Messaging?

I’ll leave out VoIP, video and unified communications for now, and focus solely on Instant Messaging.

Six Best Unified Instant Messengers

The biggest headache with IM is, like personal email, everyone is using a different platform for instant messaging.

It also depends on your operating system (Windows, Mac or Linux) or if you want a true web-based SaaS solution.

And of course there is mobile.  Mobile devices vary from vendor to vendor and all have IM capabilities but all are independent applications or downloads.  It means on your Blackberry or iPhone, you’ll be toggling back and forth from app to app.

The solution is simple:  The Unified Instant Messenger.

So here is my list of the Six Best Instant Messengers based on platform:

• Windows – Trillian, Digsby, Pidgin, Instan-t
• Linux – Pidgin
• Mac OS X – Adium, Trillian (in development)
• Web  – Meebo, Instan-t
• iPhone support – Meebo (Alpha, no download required), Trillian (in development)

If you have another application not listed above, feel free to comment below.