Have you looked at Fluther (http://fluther.com http://fluther.com) at all? They're building something of this nature (but w/o a specific hacker slant). I know

Have you looked at Fluther (http://fluther.com http://fluther.com) at all? They're building something of this nature (but w/o a specific hacker slant). I know they're planning on releasing an IM interface shortly along with an API.