Have you try Empathy? an instant messaging for GNOME's desktop, it support multi-protocol messaging network (Jabber, Google Talk, YM, AIM, etc). I noticed it's speed and one protocol i considered to be missing is a IRC protocol. I prefer to use Pidgin since it has IRC support. I use Pidgin's IRC protocol to chat in #gtk+, #gnome in GNOME's IRC server. Have it a try...
Empathy
Pidgin
