There is a glimmer of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. This tunnel was first discovered when it was announced that Yahoo! and MSN Messenger users would be able to IM each other.

To refresh your memory, the October announcement said,

"In addition to exchanging instant messages, consumers from both communities will be able to see their friends' online presence, share select emoticons, and easily add new contacts from either service to their friends' list, all as part of their free IM service.* Yahoo! and Microsoft plan to introduce these interconnectivity capabilities between MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger to customers around the world in the second quarter of 2006."

And the glimmer of light I point to above from MSN Program Manager Leah says,

"As it turns out, it's been a hard problem to solve, and the team has been working hard,  I still don't know exactly when you're going to be able to start adding those Yahoo! Buddies to your WL Messenger, but it can't be much longer. Last week I got to check out a fully functional version of WL Messenger which could exchange IMs with a fully functional version of Yahoo! They've still got some work to do – specifically final testing."

ps... MSN Messenger is going out, Windows Live (aka WL) Messenger is on the way in. But don't even get me started on that.