Rattle wrote:

A good first step may be something as simple as "smart status" for Instant Messaging. There are time when I really don't want to be bothered with messages at all. Other times, I'd like them to be displayed, but not in the forefront of my desktop. In other cases, some discussions take place over hours with messages every several minutes, instead of a traditional dialogue. In all these situations, my status is simply "available". Idle and Away only appearing when I'm not actually active at my terminal. Just addressing this issue with IM would both make IM more useful, and milk more productivity out of people.

At least with GAIM, you can configure the Idle/Away in two ways to get close to what you are talking about. At least in X, you have the choice in the Preferences->Away/Idle panel to set "Idle Time Reporting" as { "X Usage", "Gaim usage", "None" }. I believe the same is true in the Windows port. And then there is the default "I'dle Mak'er" plug-in for more control over idling.

RE: Meet the Life Hackers - New York Times