I cannot believe that MSN Messenger has 6.5 Million users. I am one of those users, but that is just to notify me of email. Aol Instant Messenger is much better. With it, you can do alot more.

-You can have private buddy chats as well as join public chat rooms.
-You can also be notified of pop mail.
-You can choose the way your text is displayed on the other users' machines.
-You can have bold/italic text. The smilies are big enough to actually see.
-You can send pictures (in the window, not as a file transfer)
-File downloads are represented by an icon that u can rite-clik to open (instead of searching for wherever MSN stored it)
-You can have a buddy icon (avatar)
-Members can have profiles that others can view (within AIM, not on the net (which btw, MSN pages are SLOW)
-You can expand and collapse buddy groups, as well as ad members to multiple groups and create your own groups
-You can give annoying members warnings, which limit their capabilities temporarily
-You can add a member to your buddy list without them knowing that you added them.
-You can easily IM a member even if he is not on your list
-You can choose whether all members can IM you(except for those that you block), only those on your list, or none at all.
-You can block buddies
-You can search for members by common interest
-You can specify common interests so others can search for u
-Your buddy list and preferences can be saved to file
-You can have auto-login just by clicking on systray icon
-You can store passwords for multiple usernames
-You dont need a new hotmail account for each username
-You can have automatic custom away messages
-More people use AIM than any other service - MORE PPL TO CHAT WITH!!!!!!

There are much more advantages to AIM. Try it out at http://www.aim.com to see them!!!

AND PLEASE, TELL ANYONE WHO IS NOT USING IT THAT IT IS THE BEST (and most popular) INSTANT MESSENGER SOFTWARE OUT THERE!!!