When it comes to pure text chattery, Adium is tops in my book. iChat is great for voice and video conferencing. Adium just has far more features for text chatting (though I’ll admit the little speech bubbles on iChat tabs are just too fun). You can skin it, tap into more services, customize notifications to your heart’s content (native Growl support? oh yeah).
If you feel anything like I do, do them a favor. Do a little web browsing over at Webware’s award voting page where Adium is in the running for the communication category. I’m sure the Adium guys will appreciate it.
Adium FTW
I like it so much, I even submitted Xtras.
Sorry, any web 2.0 awards that don't include Twitter in the social networking category don't deserve any votes for anything. Lame!