Is their a popular instant messenger with Windows Live's features?

[TheOnlyMrK]

I've been using Windows Live (MSN) for as long as I can remember now. I love it for being a complete all-in-one with email, instant messaging, online storage, profiles (kinda like MySpace), online photo albums, calender, and a whole bunch more but those are the main/only things I use. Just now that I'm on Ubuntu for good it's kind of annoying using a Windows service, plus their website never did like any non-IE internet browser much, which I'm sure they did on purpose. So I'm wondering does anyone know of another service that provides;
1. Email
2. Instant messaging with voice and video chat options
3. Online profiles (like MySpace/Facebook)
4. Online storage and/or photo albums

I really have a feeling that Windows Live is the only one to give you all that but figured I'd ask here just in case. Personally I think if Ubuntu came up with something like this it'd be great, I'd love to have an Ubuntu email address with an instant messenger and online profiles, then we already have the online storage with Ubuntu One.

[doorknob60]

Gmail/Gtalk gives you some of that. Email, of course, IMing, with video and voice chat in the Flash version and possibly coming to native IM clients soon (due to the open protocol), Online profiles....maybe Blogger (part of google) but not really, then they have Picasa for photo storage.

[SunnyRabbiera]

open a google account and you will get most of that stuff.

[Jekshadow]

Empathy can connect to a lot of popular chat services, such as Google Talk/Gmail Chat.

[VertexPusher]

I tested Google Talk through Empathy and Pidgin recently. It works fine in both, including voice and video chat.

[TheOnlyMrK]

Empathy can connect to a lot of popular chat services, such as Google Talk/Gmail Chat.
Yeah but I'm looking for an all-in-one service, not program, because it's useful to be able to give someone my email and that connects them to my pictures, info on my profile, files I'm sharing, and (duh) my email. Why I've been using Windows Live so long because it's like the all-in-one tool for communicating with others on the web.

I'm looking into Google Talk right now, think I'm going to try it out but not sure if it's what I'm looking for.

[VertexPusher]

Yeah but I'm looking for an all-in-one service,
Google.


not program, because it's useful to be able to give someone my email
Google account name.


and that connects them to my pictures,
Picasa Web Albums.


info on my profile,
Orkut, iGoogle, Blogger.


files I'm sharing,
Google Docs, YouTube.


and (duh) my email.
GMail.

[murderslastcrow]

You can supplement it with multiple services. Google provides a completely solution to most of this.

However, if you're adventurous, you could try your hand at running Windows Live Messenger 8.5 in Wine. There is a tutorial on wine-reviews.net detailing how you can use winetricks to enable this functionality. I was able to successfully perform video calls, and everything else seemed to work perfectly, too.

However, since I use multiple platforms, I'm not too concerned about that.

I would still opt for Google's services, and they have Orkut after all for your profile.

[ndefontenay]

Google talk is pretty nice. Yahoo also is pretty sweet. You can use the same account for flickr. I'm a yahoo.

[koleoptero]

You forgot friend connect, and how you can also share what you read in Google reader with friends. Not to mention collaboration through wave. Google is the future I'm afraid.

[3rdalbum]

Facebook comes pretty close.

E-mail (well, long text messaging)
Instant Messenging - use Tokbox for the voice and video like they do on Meebo
Online profiles
Online photo albums
Farmville