title: Integrating Instant Messaging into an ASP.NET application
body: <p>I was thinking about integrating some instant messaging function into an existing ASP.NET web application, e.g:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>the web application can display the online-status of users (are they currently logged in with their IM client)</li>
  <li>users can send messages from the web application to the IM client of other users</li>
  <li>users can initiate a IM chat from the web application (without having to know the other user's IM identification beforehand)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Does anyone know about some existing libraries, sample applications or other resources that might help implementing such a feature?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge.</p>